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Skull 21

Story Telling - Spatial Design - Experience Design

To teach kids between 8 and 16 the unique restoration of Skull 21, a 66 million-year-old Triceratops skull, a guided exposition was developed and designed. It tells the adventurous story of this historic piece.

Once upon a time, there was a fossil. In fact, it was a fossil of one of the largest Triceratops skulls in the world. A Triceratops that died 66 million years ago and which was brought to the Technical University in Delft a few years ago. The skull, called Skull 21, was restored with the use of innovative techniques for which TU Delft is well known and will be presented in a guided exposition at its Science Centre.

I was asked to design the guided exposition together with lighting design experts. The exposition was finished in September 2020. Some of the pictures are made from the first digitalized walk-through concept experience made in Unreal Engine together with the VR zone at the TU Delft.

Mood boards were created to start the design process. The aesthetics taken from the mood boards started the environment created in Unreal Engine in which the digitalized fossil was already present. This made it very easy to iterate on the spatial design of the expo. The elements of the expo were created in Sketchup and Rhino.

Moreover, to get the story right, a lot of research was done with the help of experts from Naturalis Leiden. The design of their expositions was also used as inspiration for the Skull 21 expo. The story was translated into a storyboard and executed in animation by an animator.

This project gives me the experience of leading a project for an actual client. I was responsible for the overall aesthetics, planning and technical execution of all the elements.