Test Fit

A test fit is a quick, rough, scale-accurate drawing that answers a simple question before you start designing:

Will our important stuff actually … fit?

The term comes from architecture and commercial real estate. Before a big company leases an office, someone always quickly makes (at least) a floor plan showing the workstations, offices, conference rooms, and so on, to see whether the company can actually fit into the space — before they lease it.

We do this for museum projects in our studio, and honestly, everyone should.

But we’re not deciding whether to lease anything. We’re testing the exhibition ideas quickly in advance.

Before getting deep into Concept Design, we draw the spaces accurately and add the biggest known elements: large artifacts, cases, interactives, immersive environments, media installations, and any required circulation (space for visitors to move and pause).

This is not the actual design. It is a feasibility check.

The Concept Design phase is when the overall layout and major exhibit components begin to take shape. A test fit should happen before, or right at the beginning of, that process.

Here’s the thing:

Big changes get harder and more expensive as projects move forward. So test-fit the biggest things first.

Moving rectangles around on a drawing is cheap. Moving reality later is not.

Warmly,
Jonathan

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MtM Word of the Day:
Test fit. A quick, scale-accurate drawing used early in a physical design project to determine whether major objects and spaces can actually fit within the available area before more specific design work begins.

You’ll find hundreds more industry words demystified at the MtM Glossary of Museum Exhibitions.