Quatrefoil Homepage

MUSEUM PLANNING

EXPERIENCE DESIGN

EXHIBITION FABRICATION

Since 1989, Quatrefoil has grown from four founding partners into a cohesive, multidisciplinary team, working together to achieve excellence in museum exhibits and experiences.

Abbie Chessler Paula Schuman Ernie Falcone Paul DeCamp Michael W. Burns

Abbie Chessler

Founding Partner | Design

Abbie is the visionary and creative force that drives Quatrefoil. With over 25 years of design experience, Abbie is nationally recognized for her ability to create insightful museum plans and innovative exhibits.

Paula Schuman

Founding Partner | Vice President

Paula’s expertise in welding, woodworking and mount making has shaped our approach to quality fabrication and best practices in conservation. Paula now applies her expertise to managing Quatrefoil’s operations and corporate finances.

Ernie Falcone

Founding Partner | Technology Director

With nearly 30 years’ experience in custom electronics development, Ernie creates innovative solutions for museums. His ability to conceptualize and evaluate critical details is essential in developing Quatrefoil’s successful interactive experiences.

Paul DeCamp

Partner | Chief Operating Officer

For over 13 years, Paul has applied his management expertise to numerous complex projects. Paul is a skilled activity developer and fabricator, known for integrating custom software with unique, electromechanical interfaces. As Chief Operating Officer, he oversees business operations.

Michael W. Burns

Design Director

Michael has been designing interactive, media integrated environments for over 20 years. Formerly the Design Director at the Field Museum and Creative Director at the Shedd Aquarium, he has an extensive background in leading teams of designers, media producers and museum professionals to create imaginative and inspiring exhibition experiences. See what Michael has been thinking about at www.betweenspace.net

Project 01 / 06

United States Mint at Philadelphia | Philadelphia, PA

A stunning display of historic and rare coins, multimedia, memorable interactives and a factory tour all set the stage for visitors to travel through the United States Mint's past to the present. This 18,000-square-foot visitor tour experience was developed, designed, built and installed by Quatrefoil.

PNC Legacy Project | Pittsburgh, PA

Quatrefoil designed and built this unique multimedia experience focused on the Pittsburgh region’s transformation from a steel-based economy into a thriving information hub. It incorporates an oral history listening space, dynamic digital graphics and an interactive projection.

National Zoological Park | Elephant Trails | Washington, DC

Beginning with a Master Plan and continuing through design and fabrication, Quatrefoil worked with the National Zoo to create the new Elephant Trails experience. This includes an outdoor pavilion with interactives developed to inspire visitors to learn more about the elephants and their habitat, and to take action on their behalf.

Discovery Place | Charlotte, NC

Quatrefoil helped Discovery Place realize its new vision as a place to ignite wonder by providing extraordinary experiences. We developed, designed and built 15,000 square feet of new exhibitions. THEM explores health and the human body as an ecosystem of flora and fauna, Project Build discusses dwellings as forms of shelter and expression, and Fantastic Frogs combines live animals with a graphic novel approach.

Birch Aquarium | Boundless Energy | La Jolla, CA

Quatrefoil designed this interactive experience to create opportunities for visitors to explore how renewable energy resources are harnessed and delivered. The activities also address the challenges and benefits of renewable energy resources. Situated in an outdoor courtyard overlooking the Pacific Ocean, the activities and play spaces are attractive to family audiences.

Bradford Washburn American Mountaineering Museum | Boulder, CO

This museum, dedicated to the spirit and fortitude of climbers who fill the legends of mountaineering history, was designed and built by Quatrefoil. Through personal stories and a wide variety of interactives and media, visitors are drawn into the art, skill and camaraderie of mountaineering.

We develop custom immersive museum exhibitions and experiences. Quatrefoil collaborates with you to realize the potential of your stories, bringing them to life by creating places for visitors to gather, play, and learn.

Our clients include history and cultural museums, science and technology centers, children’s museums and others—local and national, large and small.

HISTORYSCIENCEZOO & AQUARIUMART CHILDRENCORPORATE

Birch Aquarium

Bradford Washburn American Mountaineering Museum

Boulder History Museum

Brooklyn Children’s Museum

Bunting Management

Carnegie Science Center

Central High Museum

Children’s Inn At NIH

Coastal Discovery

Corcoran Gallery of Art

Delta Cultural Center

Discovery Communications

Discovery Place

Experience Music Project

Fredericksburg Area Museum and Cultural Center

Great Lakes Science Center

Greeley History Museum

International Spy Museum

Kidscommons

Lacrosse Museum and National Hall of Fame

Lakeport Plantation, Arkansas State University

Liberty Science Center

The Library of Congress

The Library of Virginia

Maryland Science Center

Mercer Museum

Mosaic Templars Cultural Center

Museum of Science and Industry

Museum of the Cherokee Strip

Museum of the Great Plains

National Air and Space Museum

National Aquarium in Baltimore

National Building Museum

National Museum of African Art

National Museum of American History

National Museum of the American Indian

National Museum of Dentistry

National Postal Museum

Natural Science Center

National Zoological Park

PNC Legacy Project

Seminole Tribe of Florida’s Ah-Tah-Thi-Ki Museum

Smithsonian Folklife Programs

Smithsonian Institution Traveling Exhibition Services

Space Science Institute

The Tech Museum of Innovation

Telluride Historical Museum

Tudor Place Historic House and Garden

US Bureau of Engraving and Printing

US Census Bureau

US Department of Energy

US Department of Agriculture

US Food and Drug Administration

US Holocaust Memorial Museum

United States Mint at Philadelphia

Walters Art Museum

Washington County Museum of Fine Arts

Westmoreland American Museum of Art

White House Historical Association

Yale University Art Gallery

Putting the "Active" in Interactive

Roula Tsapalas

Senior Exhibit Designer and Developer

LEED Green Associate

What is an interactive?

Compiled from Dictionary websites :

  • allowing or relating to continuous two-way transfer of information between a user and the central point of a communication system, such as a computer or television.
  • (of two or more persons, forces, etc) acting upon or in close relation with each other; interacting.
  • mutually or reciprocally active

We in the museum world use the word interactive to apply to active participation by the visitor. Contrast interactive with active or reactive. Is pushing a button, watching a video or turning a flipbook really interactive?

A relatively simple exhibit I developed for Discovery Place, Design Your Floor Plan is a low tech example of a true interactive because of the fluid interplay of actions and reactions.

The challenge is to design the interior space of a house with a 3-dimensional floor plan, by moving walls, furniture and people. Visitors interact with each other and with the exhibit to make changes and adjust the design.

What is space to an architect? How do they design space? An architect uses many tools, from sketching to drafting to building models. I wanted to develop an activity for the visitor to think and design as an architect in a developmentally appropriate way for 8-14 year olds. Instead of a using a pencil and paper for drawing a 2-dimensional floor plan, the visitor manipulates extruded walls, furniture and people to create a 3-dimensional model for exploring space.

Through prototyping, I learned what was working and what was not. A variety of wall modules and simple block furniture maximized flexibility and versatility. The conceptual detailing of the materials allowed for personal interpretation; a low wall was used as a bed, a bed as a closet (by positioning the components upside down or sideways). By adding a few personalized and highly specific objects, such as a bike, one visitor used walls to create ramps, changing his house to fit his needs.

This particular “interactive” illustrates the design process. By exploring the possibilities, participants play with relationships between spaces and potential furnishing opportunities to create an optimal layout. There is no right answer, but instead endless possibilities for creative problem solving. They soon discover that design is fluid and always changing.

“There’s no space leftover for a bathroom, I’ll have to put this toilet in the bedroom or move some of the walls.”

“It’s O.K. if we don’t have a dining room. I like eating in the kitchen.”

“If I use this low wall, people can look into my bedroom.”

As a designer and developer, I strive to create activities for exploring content through active learning. By flipping a panel, or answering a question, one acquires information. By providing an activity for role playing and exploration, there is abundant room for self expression and experiential learning. Visitors use their hands and minds to interact with the world, to increase their understanding of the content and to reach their own conclusions.

For museums, a true interactive satisfies many goals. It provides an open-ended, visitor-driven experience, so it’s different for the visitor every time. It promotes conversations and collaboration as well as critical thinking and creativity. And most of all, it is fun and engaging for all ages.

November 2012

Abbie Chessler and Quatrefoil Associates have received the Creative Industry Innovation Award from the Prince Georges Arts and Humanities Council. This award is for our contribution to our community in the arts via Quatrefoil's C Street Gallery, our design team's organizing of the 2012 Laurel Art Bike Brigade and workshops and Abbie's work on the Laurel Arts District Committee and helping to organize the inaugural C Street Arts Festival.

October 2012

Quatrefoil is pleased to announce that the building for the PNC Bank Legacy Project in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania received an honor award from the American Institute of Architects. The exhibition we developed and designed enables passersby to explore Pittsburgh’s past through interactive projections, oral histories, and digital displays.

WTAE Pittsburgh - Sally Wiggin Tours PNC Legacy Project’s Latest Endeavor

September 2012

Quatrefoil finished installing new exhibitry for Lakeport Plantation, the last antebellum plantation home along the Mississippi River in Arkansas. The elegant casework in this carefully restored building helps to showcase the artifacts and history of the people who lived and labored there, while allowing the most important artifact, the house itself, to shine without distraction.

“The exhibits look fabulous!!!!”
– Ruth Hawkins, Director
Arkansas Heritage Sites, Arkansas State University

Lakeport Plantation – New Exhibits Installed

July 2012

We are pleased to announce the opening of the United States Mint Visitor Tour in Philadelphia, PA, which Quatrefoil designed, developed, and fabricated on time and on budget. Two-story-high projections, tactile interactives, a factory tour, and multimedia displays engage visitors and illustrate the interwoven histories of our nation and the United States Mint.

WTXF-TV Fox 29 News – New United States Mint Tour Unveiled for Independence Day