Housing 2040 Travel Exhibition Scotland
Detail Biodiversity

Detail showing the challenges of maintaining biodiversity in Scotland.

Present Voices – Future Lives Bespoke Icon set
Exhibition Entrance – Map cubes

A modular system of cardboard boxes has been created to build the theme columns and map display.

Present Voices – Future Lives Bespoke Icon set
Custom Challenge Icons

Custom hand-drawn icons for all challenges we identified for the travel exhibition.

Present Voices – Future Lives Identity Logo, Housing 2040
Present Voices – Future Lives Logo

The Identity is reflective of the journey the exhibition is taking to capture the voices of the locals and jointly point towards alternative futures.

Present Voices–Future Lives Exhibition

Client: Scottish Government, Architecture and Design Scotland
Field: Identity Narrative, Exhibition Design

Brief:

Home is more than simply shelter. It is not just the place where we live, but has a huge influence on how we live. It can shape our health and well-being, as well as our work and prosperity. It also impacts on the quality of our environment and the strength of our communities.

The Scottish Government and Architecture and Design commissioned The University of Edinburgh (ESALA), Collective Architecture and Peak15 to conceive, design and organise a sustainable travel exhibition as part of their Housing2040 initiative. As part of the travel exhibition ESALA and Collective Architecture held workshops with 12 local communities across Scotland in 2019. Themes such as the environment, climate change, housing issues, but also the needs of thriving future communities would need were addressed. The desire was for the exhibition to be designed in a sustainable format and considering the material impact.

 

Concept & Outcome:

Peak15 designed the modular concept of the exhibition with the team to meet the criteria of being easily transportable and build-able for short period of time spent in each location. We selected cardboard boxes to design the whole exhibition as a modular set to be flexibly used for the exhibition as well as workshop setting. Collective Architecture conceived a new exhibition title–Present Voices/Future Lives–to reflect the challenges required in Scottish housing and Scottish communities to thrive in 2040 and beyond.

The subsequent identity was inspired by the housing theme, the traveling nature of the exhibition and a future forward-pointing outlook. In order to make the huge amount of content accessible for different types of audiences, from school pupils to the elderly, and with different time frames of engagement in mind i.e. workshop participants to exhibition visitors in the evening we opted for the following solution: Themes were created in the categories of Live Share, Live Learn, Live Grow, Live Share. Within these we translated and expanded the challenges of the Housing2040 Government agenda into 4 subcategories for each theme. These were further broken down into challenge sentences and possible solutions for each theme. By doing so we created starting points for discussion rather than presenting finalised solutions; we were keen to enable a true dialogue with the community and hearing about their views and local struggles with the challenges presented. Further bespoke icons were drawn and used to illustrate the challenges for the viewer afar so that they drew in the audiences. We also added international and national housing/architecture examples to show best-practice solutions already in place.

Peak15 also oversaw the complete production and project management of the exhibition design.

Chris Leslie, BAFTA-winning filmmaker, conducted interviews with the local community and captured each location with drone footage to create a compelling documentary narrative of the place.

 

Funding & Impact:

Funded by the Scottish Government, as part of their Housing 2040 initiative.

2020, Selected for the RSA Annual Showcase
2020, Glasgow Lighthouse Exhibition
2020, Engine Shed Exhibition