Cara Standham

CONTACT – cara14cs@gmail.com

Many of my designs are created with the aim to stand out and defy traditional methods of exhibition design. I like to design experiences that take visitors away from the everyday and into an informative atmosphere. 

The Significance of Sound: A Connection to Music 

The power of music is not only evident in the past and present day but in many intangible elements of each individual. To encapsulate the importance and necessity of music, the proposed exhibition will highlight the main influences music has on our being. The purpose of the exhibition is to show music in new forms and in doing so reconnecting each visitor to their use of music. 

The chosen client for this exhibition is Youth Club Archive in London, documenting the changes and evolutions of youth in the UK. The exhibition is designed as an intergenerational experience at a target age range of 20-60 years old. For the location, the Village Underground in Shoreditch, London is ideal in encapsulating the expression and universal nature of music and a theme of recycling the past to create something unique. 

FLIGHT 

To answer the age-old question ‘how do birds fly?’, this temporary exhibition will use interactive and informative elements to educate young people about the beauty and complexity of flight. The exhibition’s form will give a sensation of a bird’s take off as well as the lightweight, effortless nature of flying.  The content will cover all aspects of the anatomy of flight, why birds need feathers and how birds have evolved to fly. This exhibition will be held at the Haltia Finnish Nature Centre in Espoo, Finland, ideal for accommodating KS2 children and families to learn about flight within a Finnish National Park. 

Shannon O Cochran Sturdy

CONTACT – shannonolivia1997@gmail.com

As a designer I find it important to try and make a conscious effort to use sustainable building styles and techniques to create my designs. Where possible I enjoy looking into the use of recycled and reused fabrics and materials. I also enjoy looking into how organic and natural forms can be adapted to create a cohesive and functional design whilst still being aesthetically pleasing and conveying the overall message of the exhibition. My projects featured differ dramatically in their themes and I believe this has helped me to expand as a designer as I have had to look into different design styles to better my projects as I have continually had to question and reassess my choices. 

Major Project Overview: (A plant based planet) 

A plant-based planet focuses around the encouragement of a more plant based (vegetarian or vegan) and a more sustainable lifestyle. The current climate crisis has most of us looking for new ways to be able to reduce our carbon footprints to leave a better planet for the future. Whether it be through driving less, recycling or being more ethically conscious with our diets.  The idea of a plant-based lifestyle can be daunting to some due to the idea that to be more sustainable or plant based you have to make massive changes to your lifestyle, the exhibition intention is to show the true simplicity of changing your eating habits, as well as the positive impact those choices will have on the planet.  

Autonomous Project Overview: (British Airways, from fashion to flight) 

The autonomous project focuses on the concept of flight and the different manifestations of it and how it affects us. The chosen theme of British Airways highlights the glamour of one of the worlds most loved airlines, this interactive experience focuses on how the brand identity of front-line staff has responded to changing social norms around the fashion of the airlines clothing, interior designing and branding. The exhibition gives a brief history of the brand and its evolution through the years and how it has kept with societies ever changing expectations and the highs and lows of the brand. 

Shannon Robinson

CONTACT – shannon.skye98@gmail.com

As a designer I primarily focus on creating interactive spaces to immerse an audience. I enjoy creating environments in which I can manipulate the emotional responses and thought processes of visitors. In each design, I aim to challenge how an exhibition can be experienced and the ways in which each member of the public can interact with my designs on an intellectual level. The main aspects of my designs highlight contemporary issues, incorporating digital media and focused areas such as direction and alternative spaces. Throughout my practice I tend to focus on the influence of light and colour and how these two subject matters can challenge the audiences understanding and appreciation of the subject itself. I consider my designs as ‘useful’ as they not only influence but creatively educate simultaneously.

Major Project Overview

‘Living Colour’ is an immersive exhibition in which visitors will explore and learn about the psychological and physiological effects of light and colour. The aim of this exhibition is to educate a wide and varied audience of these effects whilst still being a fun, explorative and playful space for visitors to enjoy. With the use of interactives, the exhibition comes to life, becoming an embodiment of intangible effects and demonstrating the exact effects of the use of light and colour.

Autonomous Overview

Feathers: From Finery to Flight is a project demonstrating the importance of feathers. This exhibition travels through three different zones: The evolution of feathers, the use and purpose of feathers, and finally, the evolution of feathered animals. The structural elements of this design are huge sculptural sections of the ‘barbules’ which are the hairy sections of feathers which link together, creating a mesh structure which allows wings to push down air, and makes them fly. The entire exhibition is an embodiment of feathers themselves.

Ethan Kocot

CONTACT – ethankocot@icloud.com

ANTI-SOCIAL HOUSING [MAJOR PROPOSAL]

Stemming from research into the innate value of domesticity and dwelling, as well the value of the inhabitant in artefacts of heritage; this proposal concerns itself with the [re]construction of the post-war housing estate [and in this case the Thamesmead Estate] as a vibrant, diverse socially active and accommodating place that is not necessarily always in decline therefore does not inevitably represent or dictate a bleak future for its inhabitants. Rather suggesting that they are worthy of celebration over defamation in a period that is otherwise devoid of any reasonable means of affordable housing. Promoting notions of composition, sequence, and experience over any traditional aspects of spatial consideration, serving to differentiate between functional typologies, the enclosed and open spaces, between that of the communal and that of the private and that of the threshold and occupied space, the following structures serve to highlight the spatial functionality and hierarchy of the archetypal post-war domestic setting. And if these structures were to be merged they would depict that of the domestic interior [or at least its prevailing connotations] within its entirety, as a series of relational elements, however, that is not the intention of this proposal; rather it aims to document and address how these spaces are categorised and thought of individually, addressing the innate feelings we hold towards any specific space when seen devoid of its contextual factors – and promoted rather as a space for meaningful interaction and mediation – as a platform from which to promote the necessity of these estates within contemporary society.

Wai C Mak

CONTACT – elvismak13@gmail.com

This purpose of the museum is about some stories behind Japanese Whiskies, such as the culture, heritage, and aesthetics of Japan. I designed so many methods to express the story of Japan from installation art, interactive, gallery, and a place of meditation.  All these things are about education. People can learn the aesthetics of Wabi-Sabi, the spirit of making the Japanese whisky and realize the relationship between nature and humans. Whiskey is a thing that relays on the environment because of the climate, ingredients, temperature, and humans. The work from the human can also affect the quality of whisky because of malting, mashing, fermentation, etc. Japanese whisky is like a combination of human and nature.

The ART of Japanese Whisky

This purpose of the museum is about some stories behind Japanese Whiskies, such as the culture, heritage, and aesthetics of Japan. I designed so many methods to express the story of Japan from installation art, interactive, gallery, and a place of meditation.  All these things are about education. People can learn the aesthetics of Wabi-Sabi, the spirit of making the Japanese whisky and realize the relationship between nature and humans. Whiskey is a thing that relays on the environment because of the climate, ingredients, temperature, and humans. The work from the human can also affect the quality of whisky because of malting, mashing, fermentation, etc. Japanese whisky is like a combination of humans and nature. 

Alexander Mckay

CONTACT – alex.mckay221@gmail.com

As a designer, I would consider myself practical and technical, often focusing on the physical elements that make up an exhibition. I would say that my designs often focus on function before form, ensuring that both client and user needs and requirements are met, then creating forms around those requirements. Throughout this degree, I have built upon my skills in using design software, primarily Photoshop and 3D Studio Max, preferring to construct the exhibition spaces in 3D digital form and using this as a base to develop a range of visuals and visual renders for my projects.  

MAJOR PROJECT

The project I have produced for my final year “Educate: Autism in Mainstream Education” is an educational exhibition/conference aimed at improving teaching quality and confidence for pupils in the mainstream secondary school system in the UK who are Autistic. The exhibition I have designed supports a series of lectures within the site, the Isaac Newton Building at the University of Lincoln. The audience, comprising primarily of secondary level teaching staff, will be brought to the exhibition in groups, and use the exhibition space as a base to take part in the days lectures, led by various experts and leading figures in the fields of neuropsychology and special needs teaching and support. 

AUTONOMOUS PROJECT

The task for this project was to produce an exhibition for US company Radio Flyer, who produce a range of children’s outdoor toys, primarily toy wagons, tricycles and scooters. The project aims to build a consumer base in the UK, by showcasing the products Radio Flyer produce in an interactive and enjoyable way. Based in the Metro Shopping Centre in Gateshead, the exhibition features a large curved platform, with supporting product information boards, featuring a brief history of Radio Flyer since the 1920’s through graphical form. The space also features a play area, in which families can test the products with their children before purchase. 

Paige Johnson

CONTACT – paige.johnson41@yahoo.co.uk

Autonomous Project

The autonomous project focuses on the concept of flight. Questioning the notion of flight and how this concept can be translated into many things, such as understanding feathers, and the part they play in the flight of birds. The theme for the exhibition is the explanation of the adaptations of feathers amongst a variety of bird species. The space itself is aimed to allow the younger visitors, specifically KS2, to question the notion of feathers through immersive and tactile environments, it will encourage learning and the visitor will leave having understood why these species have the feathers they do, and how this aids their survival.  

Major Project

True crime is a fascination for many and understanding the gory details that other humans can inflict upon one another is something that draws attention of most. This project focuses on how crime scene investigators and detectives process a crime scene, and what elements affect the notion of a crime. The inclusion of creating knowledge for the user to carry through the rest of the exhibition from the forensics lab and the nature vs. nurture sections is a key aspect of the exhibition as it allows for the knowledge to be used within the main space, the crime scene. The main aim is to portray to the public the awful reality behind a crime scene, alongside immersing them within the process itself. It is intended to allow the visitor to decipher who the victim is, what the criminal intended and why the police were unable to catch them.