Delivering a World-Class visitor experience for the ESA

Delivering a World-Class visitor experience for the European Space Agency

The European Space Agency (ESA) made the decision to refurbish their Paris HQ building. And include an exciting new 125m² Visitor Centre. The Visitor Centre was denominated as the Astrolabe with clear objectives to Inform, Engage, Inspire, and Innovate.

Ouno Creative was employed in the first instance to prepare a thorough and detailed Design Report that would provide the blueprint for The Astrolabe. Once this was agreed upon, a 9 month schedule was prepared and the work could really begin to design and build an interactive showcase.

We knew from the start that the stakes were high and that The Astrolabe would need to be technically advanced and 100% reflect both the stated goals of the Agency and its desire to propel humankind’s vision of space exploration for many decades into the future.

It was important to be able to tell the ESA story at a student level as well as at an International delegation level. We deployed a number of different attractions to do so. From large format touchscreens, to digital kiosks, to a ‘Discover ESA’ dual touchtable, the Phi Globe, Holograms, VR headsets and a large curved video wall, projector and a digital whiteboard.

The design phase took approximately 6 months with Ouno Creative working on all of the following;

Architectural design, planning, floorplans, user journeys, 3D visualisation, technical drawings, elevations, cable planning, hardware selection and procurement, project management, lighting, sound and AV.

App development, UI and UX design, programming, CMS design and delivery, Networking, IT, Graphic design, creative direction, branding, 3D design, 3D printing, video and audio editing, soundscape creation.

The hardware was purchased and exported to Paris followed by a two week initial installation period where most of the works were completed and testing was well underway. Working closely with the ESA IT team, remote access was established soon after and now all content, scheduling and design changes can be managed from the UK by our team or locally by ESA.