Science City

'Science City' at the Science Museum explores the rapidly changing London of the 16th-18th centuries, showing how experiment, exchange, trade and ideas shaped the city, nation and world. This new gallery designed by Gitta Gschwendtner creates an abstract cityscape that immerses the visitor in a contemporary interpretation of historic London. Clay developed a number of digital interactives for this permanent gallery which opened in September 2019.

At key points throughout the gallery, large dioramas created by Leila Latchin bring historic artefacts to life in intriguing ways. The accompanying digital labels provide visitors with an opportunity to interrogate each scene and its contents fully. Visitors can intuitively browse a variety of content types and discover the themes, people and stories behind the historic objects.

Four historic maps of London are overlaid so that the visitor can switch between time periods to see the changing landscape of an expanding London. Hotspots and labels allow the visitor to discover interesting facts about the places and the times. Surprising animations add to the dynamic and playful nature of the experience and bring the maps to life.

As each of the historic maps use different scales and geometric arrangement, Clay's software triangulates the visitor's current viewing location based on landmarks that appear on all the maps. This allows to the visitor to stay in the same location when switching between the maps, providing a more seamless and intuitive browsing experience.