The permanent exhibit space “Le Alpi dei Ragazzi” takes up part of the renovated rooms on the intermediate level of the architectural structure of the Opera Vittorio at the Bard Fortress. WAU Architetti was the successful bidder in a Competitive Bidding Procedure announced by the Bard Fortress Association with the best technical proposal to refurbish this section of the museum. The design unfolds from the existing constraints, seeking to highlight its potential, and provides design solutions for the rearrangement and consequent functional organization of both internal and external areas.

The main objective of the design is to directly engage the target audience identified in the Schoolchildren between 6 and 15 years old by increasing their awareness on the issue of climate change on the glacial areas taking place on our Planet. The museum setting is conceived as an innovative learning context based on interactive and multi-sensory practices, that is, soliciting curiosity, imagination, creativity, divergent thinking through manipulation, sensory exploration of the materials/objects under observation.

At the same time, also through the multisensory visitor experience, the project seeks to revise physical, cognitive, and sensory barriers so as to make the exhibition space accessible to all, following the most shared principles of inclusion based on the theories of Design for All or Universal Design. The intervention aims to activate new ways of interaction by combining various interactive and non-interactive exhibits with proper multimedia installations.

The space, which plays with the architecture and its surroundings between uneven and bristling paths, balancing empty and full, light and shadow, air and rocks, attempts to retrace the metaphor of melting glaciers and global warming, to explore different ways to redirect life on Earth, that is, by supporting users in identifying tangible daily actions to take action against climate change through a clear and positive narrative.

Thus, the narrative plot takes place between nature and science, between the past and the future, and is made concrete through experimentation, discovery and play. This will happen through a process of sensory education of children where the 5 senses will be involved increasing the level of engagement of the visitors.