Islands at the Design Museum embraces sustainable exhibition design

Islands – an exhibition from the Design Museum’s Future Observatory Design Researchers in Residence programme – addresses the waste often associated with temporary exhibitions, with MSOMA Architects swapping painted MDF plinths and single-use vitrines for a display that will naturally biodegrade after use.

Its primary material of rammed earth (a mix of London clay, waste red brick and sand) is used in varying configurations with hemp surfaces and constructed using low-tech processes. The environmentally minded design reflects the curatorial framework, which sees each of the programme’s four design researchers in residence explore issues relating to the climate crisis.

Rhiarna Dhaliwal’s video installation investigating the 'extractivist' and neo-colonial realities of deep-sea mining

Architectural designer Rhiarna Dhaliwal presents a video installation investigating the 'extractivist' and neo-colonial realities of deep-sea mining, while architect and educator Marianna Janowicz’s installation 1001 Drying Rooms is an impossible tangle of ducts and dryers critiquing carbon-intensive solutions to domestic laundry drying in the absence of communal, public laundry resources.

Graphic designer Isabel Lea compiles environmental terminologies from Celtic languages found across the British Isles and displays them in large format using a bespoke typeface. Architect James Powell has created a 1:1 scale prototype for a dovecote, designed as part of a network, integrated with existing transport infrastructure in London to provide guano (pigeon poo) to urban farms for use as fertiliser.

Marianna Janowicz’s installation ‘1001 Drying Rooms'

These disparate projects respond to the intersectional challenges resulting from the climate crisis and are unified by the rammed earth, which adapts to become plinth, object support and seating as necessary. The material is thus the literal earth on which these various ‘islands’ of design research sit. This environmental metaphor is taken further: the entire show is set against a powder blue backdrop representing the seas and oceans surrounding these islands.

The visual clash this creates (the variegated tones of the rammed earth are more imposing than typically neutral exhibition structures) can be forgiven for the sake of conceptual consistency. The rigour of the projects’ design research is extended to the material research of the display.

James Powell's 1:1 scale prototype for a dovecote

The point of departure for this year’s residency is the Susan Wright painting Rising Sea Levels. Its depiction of a future United Kingdom broken up into fragments due to rising sea levels highlights the scattered nature of these islands as they exist today. Future Observatory curator George Kafka explains: 'Contrary to the national mythologies reinforced over centuries, the UK is not one isolated island nation but an archipelago of diverse places and identities.'

In this vein, the exhibition design acknowledges the diverse cultures represented in the UK. According to MSOMA Architects director Bushra Mohamed, all of these share an 'ancestral, communal, and ritualistic history of building with earth'. Mohamed stresses the abundance, versatility, and low impact of the material and she is one of a crop of architects advocating its wider use.

Isabel Lea's environmental terminologies from Celtic languages

Islands has been designed in line with the Design Museum’s commitment to reducing the environmental impact of exhibitions and displays, which started with its 2021 exhibition Waste Age: What Can Design Do? and culminated in the creation of its environmental impact toolkit for exhibition production. In turn, MSOMA Architects’ circular thinking extends not only to the material but to the labour involved in the design. The materials from the exhibition – which was built in collaboration with architectural designers and makers 121 Collective – are to be reused when the show closes as part of an ongoing programme in the practice’s Tolworth allotments and community workshop.

Design Researchers in Residence: Islands at the Design Museum in London runs until 24 September 2023