TCD

14 000 sq-ft of fun!

Housed in the oldest surviving train repair facility in Western Canada (built in 1889), the Manitoba Children’s Museum was closed in 2010 for major renovations. Reopened in May 2011, the museum features twelve permanent galleries that spark creative learning.

Using the latest educational innovations, the designer, Toboggan Design, created stimulating and entertaining interactive activities for the whole family; meanwhile, Exposition TCD selected rugged materials and manufacturing methods appropriate for a series of galleries where young and old are invited to enjoy hands-on fun.

Photo and video credit: Toboggan Design Inc.

Splash Lab

Grab a lab-coat-slicker and let the fun begin! This area is marked off by a series of self-supporting walls integrating bubble cylinders, effect lighting, numerous graphic surfaces, cut-outs, and inserts as well as stations for children to wash and dry their hands.

All modules were manufactured in our workshop, pre-assembled to verify tolerances and finalize adjustments, then dismantled to be packed and shipped to their final destination.

Tot Spot

This is the spot reserved for our littlest visitors! Just park the stroller and enter a miniature version of the Children’s Museum. Inside the open-sided cube, little ones can climb, roll, crawl, and play to their hearts’ content.

Fabricated in sections and assembled on-site, the painted cube delimits a child-safe play area and houses various foam objects covered with colourful vinyl, fun-house mirrors, and other games designed for little ones.

Illusion Tunnel

Is that wall moving? Are my eyes playing tricks on me?

Featuring forced perspective illusions printed on polyester and laminated, the illusion tunnel is a standard wooden structure with gypsum panels incorporating oversize graphic surfaces, a room lined with mirrors, a walk-in kaleidoscope with LED lights, a periscope, moulded acrylic eye sockets with moving eyelids, and rotating disks attached to the walls.

Lasagna Lookout

Do you like playing with your food?

Well, here, the food plays with you! In this multi-storey modular steel structure, visitors climb in and around the giant pasta (rigatoni rollers, spaghetti forest, and ravioli pillows), taking a different path each time – but always ending up on top.

The open structure of heavy-gauge steel is covered with high-density foam and surrounded by safety nets.

Tumble Zone

It’s a budding builder’s paradise! In this area devoted to construction projects and skyscrapers, we were asked to create structures covered with laminated graphic surfaces and work tables allowing each visitor to create their own unique cityscape.

To further stimulate the imagination of our little mini-Trumps, two large mechanical cranes with three-axis control systems carry foam bricks wherever they are needed.

Milk Machine

A-moo-sing to imagine life as a cow?

Well, here’s your chance to take the cow controls and experience life as a cow for yourself! Surrounded by a self-supporting 15’ L-shaped wall, the gallery features a gigantic photograph of a cow laminated on the outside wall.

Inside, our experts have incorporated audio-visual and computer equipment in a terminal shaped like a giant cow’s head to give youngsters an inside look at modern dairy farming practices.

Time Squared

Every town has a central meeting place, and at the Children’s Museum, it’s Time Squared.

Here, again, the Exposition TCD experts put their ingenuity to work creating an immense structure incorporating numerous electromechanical components. The cubes revolve, the numbers light up, and every event is celebrated with integrated audio signals. Follow the hands of the clock: they’ll guide your footsteps.

With its cubes, benches, and LCD monitors in the surrounding trees, Time Squared is the ideal place for get-togethers, meet-up points, and discoveries.

Pop m'Art

No, this isn’t modern art, and it sure isn’t your run-of-the-mill corner store. So what is it, exactly?

Here, kids are invited to “shop” for their supplies and create works of art. Surrounded by a series of display cabinets and bins resembling those of a corner store, Pop m’Art is designed to stimulate creativity.

To encourage visitors to get in on the fun, we created bins of all kinds and large stainless steel work areas incorporating useful storage compartments.

Story Line

All aboard! Pulled behind the engine, the Story Line car designed by our experts give free rein to young imaginations.

Seated comfortably on custom-designed benches, the children listen, spell-bound, as they learn about six exciting destinations. With the help of an oversized book and pre-printed texts, they participate in stories by completing sentences.

Using interchangeable desk tops, the themes can be adapted to keep pace with the seasons.

Mellow Marsh

“Honey, we shrunk ourselves!”

In this oversized environment, people the size of insects wander among giant leaves and pistils suspended from the ceiling (fabric stretched on aluminum frames) and immense water lilies emerging from the ground (sculpted high-density foam).

All are invited to flex their creative muscles with the pin screen, the art machine flowers, and the dragonfly xylophone.

Manitoba Children MuseumPermanent museum - Winnipeg, Manitoba