Record how many pull-ups you can do on the first floor. Practice deep breathing on floor 2. Try tree pose on the landing above 3…

For employees at Madison Children’s Museum, taking the stairs just got a little bit healthier since our employees-only stairwell got a makeover reminiscent of a high-school gymnasium. On each level, there are instructions for a healthy activity such as an exercise, stretch, or mindfulness prompt and a chalkboard square where staff can track progress or leave little notes for fellow staff members.

This stairwell redesign is the latest and last in a series of projects that are part of the museum’s Design to Move initiative. The project was created in response to a health crisis facing many children and families in Dane County that is related to a lack of physical activity. In 2015, the CDC stated that, for the first time in history, children today are projected to have a shorter life expectancy than their parents.

Physical activity needs to be integrated back into daily life through urban design. Built-in opportunities for exercise—specifically existing, code-required stairwells—are often the most underused and least engaging spaces in a building, while elevators have become more central.

Madison Children’s Museum and American Family Children’s Hospital, along with a robust group of community partners, including the Madison Fire Department, the Healthy Kids Collaborative, Dane Arts, and the Madison Art Commission, are aiming to improve public health through creative design. Intentionally engineered environments will help change the behaviors of children and families in Madison by turning healthy choices into exciting, playful experiences.

Work on Design to Move began after the museum won a highly competitive matching grant of $148,000 from the Institute of Museum and Library Services. Other stairwell installations over the last two years are located around Madison at Bayview Community Center, the City County Building in downtown Madison, One City Learning, the ULI parking lot across from the museum, and the YWCA Building. We painted stairwell murals at each of those partner organizations, and also installed a rock scramble and slide at Bayview.

Within the museum, the two public stairwells were transformed into Stair Trek: Core to Cosmos in 2017 and Stair Trek: Zip, Zap, Zoom in 2018.

Stair Trek: Core to Cosmos invites kids and families to embark on an interactive journey through the universe, from the depths of the Earth’s core, through caves, forests, tree canopies, sky, and to the remote reaches of outer space.  The stairway features the voices of children from the Madison community, who describe the sounds, smells, textures, and feelings of each environment in poetic, playful, unexpected, and profound ways. Hundreds of drawings were collected from children in the museum and are used as murals on the walls.

We engaged celebrated local digital media artist Jojin Van Winkle on the conceptual development, project design, and implementation of the sights and sounds of the stairwell. The result is a choreographed concert of image, sound, and light, which is different on every trip up or down the stairs.

In Stair Trek: Zip, Zap, Zoom kids scale a magical, multi-story, spiral climbing sculpture amidst the whimsical sounds and visions of onomatopoeia words. The metal climbing sculpture that rises through the center of the spiral staircase was created by local artists Aaron Howard and Erika Koivunen out of steel, including some decorations made out of recycled or reused parts.

Illustrated onomatopoeia words decorate each level, from A on the ground floor all the way to Z at the rooftop. In additional to English, many of the words are also accompanied by their translations in other languages, inviting kids to consider how the same sound can be phonetically represented differently in different languages. Metal panels at each level contain audio recordings of the surrounding sounds.

Zip, Zap, Zoom opened in the spring of 2018 and has quickly become a favorite attraction for many families. Older kids enjoy clambering up through the climber and the unusual words, while younger kids like following the alphabet as they climb while sounding out the words on the walls. And parents enjoy both the reading and exercise opportunities for their kids!

The newest and last stairwell brings the same treatment to the museum’s staff. Several staff members have seen significant health results after they started running up and down that staff stairwell to exercise during breaks. Our staff, both those out on the floor and those behind the scenes, work extremely hard—taking care of ourselves is often last on the to-do list. The new stairwell is a reminder to take time to care for our bodies and minds so that we can count on them as we take care of our whole Madison Children’s Museum community.

Our Design to Move Initiative was made possible by a generous grant from the Institute of Museum and Library Services. Additional supporters included The Richard B. Anderson Family Foundation, Diane Ballweg, Endres Mfg. Company Foundation, Jim Berbee & Karen Walsh, Paul Reckwerdt and Ellen Rosner, Dane Arts with support from the Evjue Foundation, and Madison Arts Commission with support from the Wisconsin Arts Board.

Community partners for Design to Move include American Family Children’s Hospital, Bayview Foundation, Urban Land Interests, Dane Arts, Healthy Kids Collaborative, Madison Arts Commission, Madison Fire Department, One City Early Learning Center, University of Wisconsin Department of Art, UW Health, and the YWCA Madison. Thank you to the many departments in the City of Madison and Dane County who collaborated on this project.