While Asia Society Texas Center (AST) in Houston is well known for their events and educational programming, historically they have not been a destination for casual museum visitors. Most people come for a program and then visit their small exhibit space.

We created their first permanent exhibit, Explore Asia, which is meant to increase their daily visitorship. It is also one of the only interactive exhibits that focuses on the Asian American population in Houston. The exhibit is made up of 6 distinct areas that highlight different aspects of 5 Asian countries. We created an interactive map where visitors can learn basic information about each country, a touch table featuring a conveyor belt of food and drinks, and even a game where visitors can step on stage and drum along to songs from each culture.

AST’s building was designed by Yoshio Taniguchi. The interactives were installed in a way that was minimally intrusive to the building. For example, for several interactives we used batteries rather than wiring them directly to power and data which would have required making permanent changes to the building itself. This also means that interactives can be moved for events and rentals which is a primary source of income for AST.