MASS Design Group, an international architecture and design firm, brought formula D_ on board the Dian Fossey Gorilla Fund's multi-million dollar conservation investment in Rwanda, named The Ellen DeGeneres Campus, which comprises a conservation hub, educational facilities, and a tourism experience. The group specifically required formula D_'s expertise in setting up large-scale visitor exhibitions that are eye-catching, appealing, and interactive.
formula D_'s role was to interpret, engineer, build, and install various projects designed by MASS Design Group for the Cindy Broder Conservation Gallery on the campus. The gallery is the campus's visitor centre and it was built specifically to educate tourists about gorilla research, gorilla conservation, and Dian Fossey's history and story. formula D_’s work included designing and printing multilingual wall and display graphics and banners, as well as custom-made physical interactive objects, and setting up various audiovisual systems around the gallery, including displaying a video message in which Ellen DeGeneres welcomes visitors to the centre; installing a projection system inside the recreation of Dian Fossey's research cabin that was a reconstruction of the projection system Dian herself used; and installing interactive elements, such as a gorilla-movement map.
Work on the project included designing and building various physical structures and large-scale display areas for both analogue presentations and interactive and digital elements in the exhibition space, while working to a brief of ensuring that all the pieces were both high end and self-sustainable. There were also project-specific challenges, such as matching timber finishes specified by the architects as the exhibition space used wood as a