Main Design Concept - Permanent or Modular Exhibition Space

All students will be split into 2 groups (2/3 MA students, 5/6 BA students in each). Each group is to design an intervention / exhibition element that will be implemented in the gallery.

The design brief that needs to be answered by all the students are whether they want to design a permanent exhibition space with design consideration of the space given or a modular exhibition space that have mobility elements that is attachable on site and can be detached once the exhibition end without making any changes to the existing building.

Explanation of an output – a single publication detailing each design proposal, with rendered images and photos of a physical model.

Main Design Consideration - Adaptive Reuse of Existing Building

In today’s world, the element of Adaptive Reuse becomes important to be acknowledged by the architect and designer.

The main idea is to understand the importance of adaptive reuse. Buildings with rich histories are finding themselves in need of renovation and rejuvenation and the task when dealing with the existing building is how to preserve the past while planning for the future.

On our perimeter of design, we would like to propose an exhibition space that is environmentally, socially and economically sustainable. This will benefit the builder, occupants and the community that engaged with the building in their daily routine.

Design Idea - The Generation Gap

Is the any demand for a designated exhibition space that specifically targeting the young generation?

This will be a fresh idea of introducing the new element of design while improvising the typical exhibition space that already been there since the beginning.

There might be a few design explorations can be made when exhibiting for the young generation. This element become the main design idea for this event because we would like to introduce the research that need to be done at the earliest stage of the design process.

It can be that we need to maintain the existing exhibition space, but this must be a conclusion from the research material and discussion that involve all the students.

At the end, this project will remain as experimental to make it more interesting for all the participants.

The Whitworth Art Gallery

Gallery visit to see how exhibitions are curated. A group tour has been organized. We should note whether the exhibitions are welcome to young people.

What could be an improvement? What works and what doesn’t work? With conjunction to the characteristic of the Whitworth Art Gallery as a listed building, we would like to look at the criteria of how we cater the design within the perimeter of the existing building.

We also like to focus on the technicality and the design of the exhibition space of the Whitworth Art Gallery. This study tour will help us in designing a well-curated exhibition space for our upcoming design project.

This is an opportunity for us to know further regarding how the specialist from the Whitworth Art Gallery designing the space for each and every exhibition and what is the standard criteria or guidelines of the exhibition spaces for the artist.