MOTAT's Aviation Hall showcases the southern hemisphere's most significant collection of historic aircraft. An impressive collection, but the visitor experience was lacking with limited information and no opportunity for interaction or deeper discovery. Research showed our target audience of intergenerational families were eager to see inside the aircraft, see them fly and understand how these aircraft existed in their operational context. We had a a clear mission for this project…

Bring the aircraft to life

Project consisted of

• Audience research to guide the design solution.

• Review and digitisation of MOTAT's extensive aircraft-related collection.

• AI-powered transcription and digitisation of hundred of hours of oral histories

• Creation of over 50 videos from oral history and video collection.

• 360-degree interior and exterior photography of all aircraft.

• Creation of 3D aircraft models for all 36 aircraft including one-off designed and home-built airframes.

• A new suite of 3D assets ready for future mixed reality products and experiences.

• Integration of 1000+ multimedia content pieces into the experience.

• Development of supplementary bilingual game experience with education programme tie-in (e.g., 'build your own plane').

• Development of a Unity powered environment fed by the exisiting MOTAT content management platform.

• Design of a scalable universal interface design enabling rollout to other MOTAT galleries and exhibitions.

Over 1000 rich content items to discover

Oral histories turned into short multi-purpose videos

Collection photography

Collectible 3D assets ready fo X-reality use

360 degree aircraft interiors for touchscreen viewing and virtual reality experiences.

Developed by Satellite, Pixel Fusion, Auckland Museum Collections Imaging Team, Neil Grundy, Words for Breakfast.
Technology Unity, Contentful, Otter.ai

BEST DESIGN AWARDS FINALIST 2023