Petronas Discovery Centre: Petrosains, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
Every aspect of the 6,000-square-foot rig environment was carefully researched and documented. A Malaysian steel company that built rigs did the majority of the fabrication. The design team went to rigs numerous times to experience their operations in order to recreate such a complex and dangerous environment inside a museum. The approach was to think of the space as a stage that visitors moved through in a sequence that matched the drilling process. Visitors "landed" on the rig by way of a helicopter simulator which mimicked the journey to the rigs, some 200 kilometers out in the South China Sea.