The Museum of Technology – Zero City. Stockholm

Zero City is an interactive exhibition at The Museum of Technology in Stockholm that explores the idea of a fossil-free city of tomorrow. The exhibition is designed as semi-permanent allowing the installation to be showcased in different Science and Technical Museums internationally including DASA Arbeitswelt Ausstellung – Dortmund, Technisches Museum Wien, and Parque de las Ciencias de Granada.

A Sustainable Design and Message

The exhibition imagines a city where fossil-fuelled cars have disappeared, where there has been a drastic reduction in the need for transportation, and places have become more local and accessible. ‘Zero City’ is situated in the main hangar of the museum that is the central thoroughfare of visitor flow and needed to create a striking immersive scenography that was inviting. The design creates a mini version of city areas such as the port, power station, shopping street, side street and piazza, where the goal is to consider how we can plan the city of tomorrow that is both climate-smart and pleasant to live in.

With lowering carbon emissions at the exhibitions core, the exhibition design was carefully considered from concept to realisation with evaluation of material choices, energy consumption and production. The proposal is a module system from re-purposed scaffolding and fabrics that can be easily disassembled for use in different contexts and built up in different constellations according to spaces that it will travel to. All contractors used were local to the area, materials were lightweight and interactive stations were monitored for consumption. The concept also incorporates active re-use of The Museum’s existing collection incorporating existing large scale objects such as early horse-drawn carts and aeroplane prototypes hung from the ceiling juxtaposed with ideas and communication of sustainable future modes of transport.

The design is playful and inviting and people-led with large hand-drawn illustrations of city buildings such as town halls, churches and housing alongside future visions of the city. Guests are encouraged to take part and try different interactive stations such as adjust city transport flow in a communal interactive table, drive a train carriage of the future, and ride electric bike design prototypes. The design also combines tactile communication where the audience are encouraged  to build with scaled up city building blocks, plant seeds in an aeroponic farm and take part in imagining simulated cities of the future through a ‘dream city’ game. With multiple interactive experiences, visitors are given an insight into an imagined future where there is space to dream and ask the question of, what if?

The project combined technical building requirements of installing large and heavy objects at height, alongside allowing the museums wider exhibition spaces to be fully functioning and accessed. This required a close relationship with building contractors to ensure a sequenced install time and deliveries to be on time and carefully monitored. All detailed drawing packages and graphic material were delivered by the JAC team as well as coordination of the built works asnd prototyping as well as guiding for disassembly and reassembly at different locations.