The Learning Center at Albert Robles Center (ARC)

The Albert Robles Center for Water Recycling and Environmental Learning (ARC) is the pinnacle of nearly two decades of efforts toward achieving groundwater sustainability by the Water Replenishment District of Southern California (WRD). ARC’s opening ended reliance on imported water for the four million residents in their service area. WRD’s goal for the adjoined Learning Center was to educate their multilingual community about the importance of the ARC facility.

To target modern audiences, the team challenged themselves to limit fixed graphics in the learning center. Ultimately, the only printed graphic in the space is the wallpaper. Instead, dynamic content is delivered using Mad Systems’ QuickSilver® solution, a new cutting-edge system for affordable, projected graphics panels. QuickSilver®’s easily updatable graphics allow for longevity and flexibility of the learning center’s content, and the amount of graphics work is multiplied by every additional language supported. At ARC, docents seamlessly alternate between English and Spanish versions of graphics panels via a tablet.

The space’s other exhibits include a theater which contextualizes the visitor center experience by sharing the rich history of LA’s struggle for fresh water supply. In the Urban Watercycle and Topographic LA Map exhibits, visitors engage with touch technology to bring projection-mapped graphics to life. The ‘Aquivator’ theatre adventures into aquifers below Los Angeles, rumbling guests in their seats as they virtually travel through sedimentary layers. Visitors can even engage hands-on with laboratory equipment, accompanied by a step-by-step video tutorial from WRD’s staff as they measure water quality at monitoring wells. The space’s focal point, a ten-foot-tall rainfall interactive, not only delivers a video diagram of the natural water cycle to visitors, but also lets them activate an air pump that pushes water up a tube, passes it through clouds above, and rains it back down over a 3D model of WRD’s service area.

All graphics and videos were researched, designed, and produced by Mad Systems Inc, supported by fabrication partner K2. Mad Systems also provided concept design for both the exhibit space, and the QuickSilver® system for content delivery.