Traditional heritage exhibitions usually suffer from the "look but don't touch" curse. Our mission at the Navy Yard houses was to smash that barrier. We took four distinct Lion Dance cultures—Chinese Southern, Northern, Korean, and Japanese—and turned the Navy Yard No.2 into a highly stylized, interactive playground. Instead of just reading history and information plaques, visitors are invited to literally step into the installation frame, grab a pair of drumsticks, and jam on the traditional instruments.

Instead of just reading history and information plaques, visitors are invited to literally step into the installation frame, grab a pair of drumsticks, and jam on the traditional instruments. We transformed a historic space into an open-source acoustic and visual playground where guests become part of the exhibit itself.

The next zone is where we let the inner child run the studio. We designed a massive, modular mix-and-match puzzle system that allows kids and adults to play mad scientist with traditional motifs, swapping heads, tails, and textures to create their own custom hybrid lion. To make sure the experience stuck, we set up a custom analog stamp station for visitors to hand-press their own bespoke souvenirs. The physical journey wraps up upstairs in a dedicated, clean workshop volume—a space specifically engineered for slower-paced, hands-on creation. It’s proof that high-end design doesn't have to take itself too seriously to make an impact.