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Inside the Cooper Hewitt Smithsonian Design Museum

By Sean O'Kane
  • The Cooper Hewitt occupies the Andrew Carnegie Mansion in Manhattan's Upper East Side.
  • Two 84-inch displays are lined up next to each other in one of the upper halls of the museum.
  • The tables also have NFC tags where the pen can be used to spill visitor's personal collections out onto the displays.
  • The "stream" flows through the middle of each display, and is a way for visitors to discover objects that they may never have known about otherwise.
  • All you have to do is just drag an object from the stream to the spot in front of you to learn more about it.
  • Each object that you browse brings up a number of related objects curated by the museum's staff.
  • Visitors can create their own objects on the tables, from lamps to buildings.
  • Some of the most fun you can have at the tables is achieved by drawing random shapes and seeing which objects the software pulls from the archives.
  • The Pen has an NFC antenna at one end, and is a capacitive stylus at the other.
  • Each pen has a wrist strap, and is designed in a way that people of any age can learn how to use it just from watching other visitors.
  • Each item on display has a crosshair next to it. All you have to do is tap the pen to it and the item is added to your collection. Lights and a small vibration signal that it was successfully added.
  • Early prototypes of the Pen are on display at the museum as well.
  • The Pen is actually powered by three AAA batteries, which should last for months at a time.
  • The Pen went through many iterations before the museum settled on the final design. At one point early in the process, the staff toyed with the idea of NFC rings.
  • One of the new features at the museum is the Immersion Room.
  • 4K projectors illuminate the floor-to-ceiling screens.
  • Aaron Cope, the head engineer for the Cooper Hewitt Smithsonian Design Museum, takes us through a tour of the wallpaper archives.
  • You can also create your own wallpaper design. The walls change in real time as you draw, and at the end you can save the design with the Pen.
  • In the Immersion Room you can either create your own wallpaper or pull existing ones from the archives with the stream.
  • Cope whips up a wallpaper design of his own.
  • The Immersion Room lives up to its name, but you can't stay long. Each visitor has a five-minute time limit.

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