Museums have long been under-resourced and underfunded, especially in the areas of digital innovation and accessibility practices. A fear of “getting it wrong” is also an immobilizing force that prevents innovation. This paper explores the design and implementation of three student-led and student-created digital modules for visitors with diverse motor, cognitive, sensory, and behavior-emotional disabilities for a historic house museum located in Florence, Italy.
The prototypes utilize aspects of open-source software, and low-cost, sustainable solutions. In this paper, existing technology-based accessible initiatives employed in NYC-based historic houses provide the basis for effective practices. By outlining and describing three student-built working prototypes developed for a small historic house museum called Villa La Pietra located on NYU’s campus in Florence, Italy, we seek to illustrate new ways that cultural workers in small historic houses can build ground-breaking accessible technology projects themselves.
The student-built prototypes include the design and development of an augmented reality platform to digitally integrate historical and archival photography of Villa La Pietra using image descriptions, a relational database of the Acton guestbook with digitized signatures that trace the connected histories of visitors to the Villa over the last century, and the design and implementation of a 3D printed object from Villa La Pietra’s collection so that it becomes accessible beyond the bounded regions of a visual field for visitors that are blind or have low vision. This paper explores some of the creative, educational, and social implications of emerging technologies for small historic house museums, including extended reality (augmented reality, virtual reality, and mixed reality) and 3D printing. The research and pedagogy outlined in this site and in this paper are designed to build a greater understanding of digitally-based accessibility practices in historic houses.
Our aim is to inspire future generations of technologists, students, and cultural workers, enabling them to lead the future of museum access.
Principal Investigators
Dr. Rosanna Flouty
Clinical Associate Professor of Museum Studies
Director, Program in Museum Studies
Rosanna is Clinical Associate Professor and Director of the Museum Studies program at the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences at New York University. Rosanna is an education professional with a commitment to building site-specific technology programs to support informal learning with diverse audiences. She has worked in and with museums for over thirty years.
Craig Kapp
Clinical Professor of Computer Science
Craig is a Clinical Professor of Computer Science at the Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences, New York University. With over twenty years of teaching experience, Craig has a deep interest in the intersection of technology and education. His areas of interest include mixed reality, data visualization, graphics and gaming, interactive media, assistive technologies, and digital storytelling. He is passionate about exploring new and exciting ways to use technology to improve, augment and bring a sense of “play” to the educational experience.
Content Team
Lina Maria Mendez
Lina Méndez graduated from the NYU Museum Studies Program in January 2023. During her NYU Florence internship in the summer of 2022, she developed an early prototype for a garden tour at Villa La Pietra with the goal to make the physical grounds surrounding the museum more accessible. She now works as an Assistant Registrar for the Patricia Phelps de Cisneros Collection while also completing an internship at the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Arms and Armor Department. She is from Bogotá, Colombia and now lives in New York City.
Priya Blair
Priya is a Museum Studies Master’s student at NYU. She is currently writing her MA thesis about the organization of American museum volunteer programs from the 1970s to today. Past experience includes internships at historical and art institutions working in museum education, public programming, social media, and curation.
Elizabeth (Liz) Lewis
Liz is a Museum Studies Master’s Student at NYU. She is currently working on her MA Thesis about Immersive Art Experiences and how they can be beneficial to museums and their visitors. Her passion is creating an accessible and inclusive museum space.
Bailey Binke
Bailey is a rising second year Master’s student in the Museum Studies Program at NYU. She hopes to combine her background in museum education and programming, along with her experience living with a visual impairment, to create accessible and multi-modal opportunities for audience engagement in museums and cultural heritage spaces.
Development Team
Sammy Levin
Sammy Levin is an Integrated Design & Media student at New York University Tandon School of Engineering whose interests bridge the gap between design and software. He has experience prototyping digitally and physically across a range of tools and platforms. Some of his past projects include an Augmented Reality history app, an accessible museum experience for low-vision patrons, and a music visualizer.
Irene Li
Irene is an Interactive Media Arts student at New York University, who is interested in the intersection of arts and technology and promoting rights of people in vulnerable groups. Her areas of interest include animation, game, and inclusive design.
Jeff Ma
Jeff is a computer science student at New York University. His passion for Human-Computer Interaction, Computer System Design, and Web Development drives his pursuit of knowledge in the field of computer science. He is constantly seeking new challenges and opportunities to deepen his understanding and develop his skills in this dynamic field.
Content Advisors
Claudia Ferrer
Claudia Ferrer is a candidate for a Masters Degree in Museum Studies at New York University with research interests in craft, design, and the decorative arts. In summer 2022, she completed her field work researching and digitizing the Acton Family Guestbook at Villa La Pietra in Florence Italy. She is now writing her thesis investigating the construction of narrative in contemporary craft exhibitions.
Rowan Murry
Rowan is a Museum Studies MA student at New York University. In 2022, she served as the Collections Care & Documentation intern at Villa La Pietra. Her current research interests include Ancient Roman art & archaeological collections, provenance research, and accessibility and inclusion practices in museums and cultural heritage sites.
Rebecca Wagener
Rebecca Wagener is a Museum Studies Master’s Student at New York University. In the summer of 2022, she was one of the Collections Care and Documentation interns at Villa La Pietra, largely working to create database records for the Acton Family’s Photograph Archive. She is currently writing her master’s thesis, which researches archaeological funerary objects held in historic collector house museum collections.