The British Library asked us to create a new exhibition gallery in which to mount 20 unique exhibitions over 5 years.

The space forms part of the public circulation within the library so the design challenge was to create a sense of place and enclosure without defining it with walls. The design saw us using a tensile canopy, exploring controlled lighting, directional sound, designing a modular flexible display system and exploring the nature of gateways and entrances with permanent architectural elements.

We have designed a series of exhibitions in the completed space. We worked with graphic designers Morse Studio to create this particular exhibition pictured below, this exhibition, titled ‘Census & Society: Why Everyone Counts,’ was designed within the Folio Gallery was to mark the 21st Census in Britain. Just as the environment for the exhibition was formed by using many smaller units so do we build a picture of our society through many contributors to a census.

We used different colours to define sections and strong simple graphics to create a narrative through the exhibits.