Starting point

A SHATTERED DREAM – COLLE DI VAL D'ELSA

It all began 2009 with a dream: make the history of AFS available to a larger public in a real museum in Colle di Val d'Elsa.
The initial idea of an online gateway was based on the premise that a physical museum would be created in Italy. The online portal was supposed to merely serve as a marketing tool and as an exchange platform.
Negotiations with the municipality as the owner of the property proved to be complicated and time-consuming, though.

CHANGE OF DIRECTION – THE VIRTUAL MUSEUM EMERGES
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Two years later the idea of a museum set in an actual building was dropped. The disadvantages concerning accessibility and costs were obvious. Therefore, the idea of a virtual museum emerged.
Preliminary draft studies were based on the central idea of using the AFS bus trips as a virtual showcase. Soon it became clear, though, that limiting the museum to the inside of a bus had major disadvantages: The setting was too static, and the bus itself represented only one era of the AFS history. The virtual museum was supposed to mirror the multicultural microcosm of the AFS programs, be open for the future and expandable. The contents had to be presented in a narrative way.
 
 

The concept phase

NOW IT BECOMES TANGIBLE

Keeping this in mind, the idea of creating specific yet universal (living) rooms for each time period emerged. This made it possible to use the host families as the vehicle for the cultural transfer which AFS stands for.
The challenge was to design the rooms with style elements that represented the different time periods and at the same time to tell the  stories of AFS personnalities with real artefacts.
This is clearly visible in the room "Between the Wars" which features the study room of founder A. Piatt Andrew in his Gloucester home known as Red Roof.
Additionally, a globe was created providing a navigation reel which allows the visitor to move between the historic milestones.
In early 2014, the concept had progressed far enough to enter the implementation phase.

Implementation

THE PROOF IS IN THE PUDDING

The basis for the implementation was a detailed study of the different periods. Each scenery was first carefully sketched and enhanced by objects elaborated with a 3-D software. Lastly, the visuals and footage were interlocked in the coding with the controls.
When now visiting the 3D museum (www.the-afs-story.org) the selected archive contents (www.the-afs-archive.org) are loaded into the rooms per database request.

Design studies

Contributors

A big THANK YOU to all,who have helped to realize this Project!

Conception

Marianne Meyer
Stefan Müller
​Tamara Bürgler

Design

Stefan Müller
Severin Gehring (Dissenter)

Graphic implementation | styling

Tamara Bürgler
​Lea Landolt

3D-Modeling

Daniel Hartmann
Immanuel Birrer

Coding

Severin Gehring (Dissenter)
Marco Rieser

Digitalization & Data processing

Marianne Meyer
Orlando Vogel
Tamara Bürgler
Daniel Hartmann
​Lea Landolt

Text & EDITING

Stefan Ragaz

making of

Manuela Brandenberger
Stefan Müller

September 2018

Thank you for your Interest!