The Technicians: The David Sainsbury Gallery is a new permanent exhibition at The Science Museum, London celebrating the vital role that Technicians play in our everyday lives. Through hands on and digital interactivity, the audience will have an insight into specific Technicians roles and try problem-solving tasks on gallery. The design highlights the four different sectors of: Advanced Manufacturing, Creative Industries, Health Science, and Energy Network where Techncians play an integral part.

The exhibition design creates a framework that can hold the stories of Technicians, while allowing their world to be explored through scenography, media and 1:1 encounters. Aesthetically, the framework is lightweight and conceived as a large-scale furniture piece which inhabits the gallery space. It is both robust and able to host a variety of materials and stories. Each world of Technicians is expressed through interactive stations, materials and signature colours relating to the workplaces exhibited.

The concept of the framework takes inspiration from the component parts of a model building kit. These kits are both playful and technical; qualities inherent to the work of Technicians, and to the atmosphere evoked in the exhibition. As a Technician, all actions are part of a larger whole – from the smallest scale of nanotechnology to the larger scale of energy production, together they make the world function. In the same way, within both the kit of parts and the gallery framework, many smaller elements come together to form a larger and greater whole.

At each gallery entrance, visitors are met with a scaled-up version of a model kit of parts with enlarged objects made in cnc’d ash housed in a five-metre-high metal frame that relate to specific Technician roles; for example, a stethoscope representative of a Veterinary Technician and prosthetic leg related to a Orthotic Technician. Alongside these objects are films that reflect Technical roles and bring these giant elements to life.

Graphically, there is a reference to graphic anime/manga style illustration by renowned artist Shango Edunjobi and graphic designer Lai Couto who create a link between the physical exhibition space and drawn world where the two become intertwined with animation, real world display and photography. Direct studies and life drawing exercises of real Technician environments for the large-scale drawings allow the illustrations to be accurate depictions of genuine situations that bring the exhibition space to life.

Responsibly sourced materials and longevity are key to the development of the grid structure, which is solely build in an FSC certified oak frame with plywood infill panels. The structure is designed for flexibility where bays can be expanded and reused after the exhibition’s lifespan. Materials such as recycled plastic ‘Durat’ and recycled wood fibre ‘Valchromat’ are used across the gallery with a sensitivity and consciousness of environmental impact as well as representative of genuine Technician workplace environments.

A generous provision of seating with multiple heights and configurations sometimes with interactive adjustable screens allow visitors to claim the exhibition space for themselves and discover stories at their own pace. A key collaboration with access consultant ‘Direct Access’ has allowed the design to allow for a wide range of visitors needs with careful consideration of audio QR code guides, integrated braille, tactile maps and careful design consideration to allow all interactive stations to be wheelchair accessible and respond to visually impaired needs.

With the overall exhibition design our ambition has been to create an environment that is welcoming and places the new Technicians Gallery as a space where guests and visitors feel encouraged to engage in the vital and often hidden work of the technicians and where the different themes cultivate, move, inspire, and challenge the younger generation in their choice of career.” 

Rather than feeling “closed in”, the design will facilitate visitors seeing and connecting with each other. “Visitors won’t get the feeling of walking from one area to another, but of experiencing everything in a connected way,” exhibition Architect Johan Carlsson, JAC studios for designweek.co.uk issues 27-september-3-october-2021

“In one way or another, all technicians are connected to each other and also to the world we live in…The design almost feels like a kit of parts, like a model, where all the little pieces are needed to create the final object.”

Exhibition Architect Johan Carlsson, JAC studios for designweek.co.uk issues 27-september-3-october-2021