Display case design | Object layouts | Object display

Established in 1906, the Museum’s extensive collection of complex specimens at the University of Reading represented an important snapshot of animal diversity in the early 20th century. With great passion, the Museum’s academic curator led the redesign, re-interpretation and move of the museum to the University’s Health and Life Sciences building which is used for its teaching of zoology and comparative anatomy.

We began our involvement by learning about the curator’s vision for the new museum, from the way exhibits were to be grouped and displayed, to the approach she needed for their interpretation, and the range of interpretation media required. The museum holds thousands of specimens including fluid-preserved dissections, fossil material, taxidermy, skeletons, histological preparations, and some extraordinary models of developmental stages and extinct animals.

We worked closely with the curator to understand the nature of each exhibit, with dimensions, weights and correct adjacencies so that we could draw up complex, scaled object layouts. Indeed the sheer quantity and diversity of specimens made the planning of the object layouts our most exacting challenge.

Our next step was to determine how the disparate items could be displayed against all the variable features that each of the air-tight display cases could offer, including UV light protection, high-security glazing, cantilevered and heat-treated glass shelves for heavier exhibits, stainless steel cable-supported glass shelves for smaller ones, and block mounts set on the base panel for others.

Despite a testing timetable caused by the Covid pandemic, the display cases now sit beautifully at the heart of the University’s Life Sciences department.

The Cole Museum of Zoology

The Wellington Collection - Robes

RCOG