Research
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Living PlacesSustainability remains a persistent question within exhibition design, particularly in relation to the temporary nature of exhibitions and the material systems they often rely upon. Rather than treating sustainability as an add-on, how can reuse and adaptability be embedded into the material and spatial logic of the exhibition itself?
For Living Places, we developed a series of four mobile display units designed to extend beyond the exhibition. The units allow the space to shift between exhibition, presentation and workshop modes, enabling ongoing reconfiguration. Alongside this, we collaborated with OM Signage Film, a signage film produced from algae-derived polymers and manufactured without petrochemical inputs.
The Living Places Exchange is a physical expression of RMIT’s Living Places Plan. It is a platform for an evolving ecology of ideas, showcasing a rotating selection of RMIT’s learning, teaching and research and its real-world impact on shaping places.
We maintain an ongoing programme of study and self-directed projects, exploring questions that sit adjacent to and often inform our wider practice. This section brings together those investigations. Recent threads of enquiry have centred on ecological thinking, the material and conceptual possibilities of reuse, and the increasingly connected relationship between digital and physical environments. These investigations take many forms, from written pieces and visual experiments to prototypes and small publications. We see this research as essential to how the studio evolves. A space to test ideas, build new vocabularies, and consider how design might respond to the conditions of the present.