Tate St Ives

In order to do that the Mima team travelled to St Ives to research the area and immerse ourselves in the ‘art centre of the Southwest’. We ran a series of workshops with Tate staff to find out what works in the space and what could work better from an operational perspective. We also ran a few creative tasks to kickstart a collaborative design approach and to really understand what our client was conceptually drawn to.

Our research phase also included a holistic analysis of the visitor experience and identified the different user types that visit the gallery. These varied depending on the season and school holidays, and included families with young children, non-English speakers, visitors with reduced mobility, wheelchair users and groups, as well as locals and Tate members.

These exercises helped us gain an incredible amount of knowledge about the Tate and the different gallery users that visit the space, before, during and after their gallery experience. In turn, it enabled us to identify and anticipate pain points, as well as create opportunities to design new interventions that will nudge the conversation between the gallery and its visitors. This analysis enabled us to map all the different questions and needs that each visitor might have and ensure that these were met with a holistic solution.

A trial period allowed us to test our designs in-situ, ensuring that visitors were taken on a holistic journey through the galleries and that it addressed the needs of staff. This testing phase meant the final solution was fool-proof and what was installed met the needs of the brief.

We oversaw the procurement, manufacture and installation of the permanent system. This has included a value engineering exercise to reduce the price point of the signs. On behalf of our client we managed all quotations and budgets to ensure overspends are avoided. This resulted in significant savings equating to 60%.