Exhibition design is a discipline in the midst of significant change as museums evolve to meet the shifting demands of today’s visitors. Where the traditional role of museums may have been to collect objects, preserve them and present them to the public, visitors are now demanding a less static, more immersive experience. Driven by rapid innovation in technology and growing competition from other leisure activities, museums are increasingly engaged in examining what role they can play in both their local communities and wider society. This shift in thinking is having an impact on exhibition design by placing the visitor journey at the heart of planning. According to Kate Bailey, the senior curator and producer for theatre and performance at London’s Victoria and Albert Museum (V&A), this is the point at which the design of exhibitions must begin. “You have to think in 4D,” says Bailey, who oversaw 2018’s Opera: Passion, Power and Politics exhibition at the V&A. “Your consideration as a curator is about offering a multi-layered experience that integrates with that journey. It is important to be aware of that audience at all times, and ask yourself what is it that they will want to see and what story or message are you trying to share.” How the exhibition evolves from there will depend on the story that is being told. “What the story is will dictate the best tools for delivering that,” adds Bailey. “Some exhibitions are more object-driven, for example.” Karen Whitting, the director of content and programmes at the Royal Air Force Museum, which has sites in Hendon and Cosford, says this increased focus on visitor experience is also having an impact on how museums work with designers. “It used to be a very design-led situation, with the experts telling us how to do it,” says Whitting. “That situation has reversed now as museums are really sensitive to the audience they want engage, and they want to respond to changes in society.” Finding stories Research is crucial to understanding what visitors want and what they respond well to. Finding the stories, and objects that help to explore them, which visitors engage with is crucial. “Look at the story that you want to tell, then consider what your star objects are and what your USP is,” advises Elise Naish, the head of heritage and collections at Luton Culture, which completed a £3.5m redevelopment of Wardown House Museum and Gallery in April 2017. Whitting says that research shows audiences connect with human stories – people are interested in people. “People first – as a decade of research exemplifies – is the best way of connecting,” she says. Rise of co-production Co-production is increasingly considered one of the best ways to unearth stories. This is particularly true when designing permanent exhibitions, says Naish. “It is also important to get buy-in from your local audience,” she says. “Without it, how are you going to get them back through the door? That is one of the reasons why co-production is so important now.” Both Naish and Whitting emphasise that the museum team needs to represent multiple voices and is not the expert in everything. A co-produced approach was also taken by the team at the RAF Museum in London’s Hendon, which last summer completed a £26m redevelopment including the three new galleries. The RAF team involved local community groups through its Historic Hendon project, which engaged people with the site and the museum’s collections. Workshops were held in community venues, including in a local pub, rather than at the museum, in a bid to open the project as widely as possible. At Wardown House, the co-production process began via its Museum Makers volunteer platform. “Co-production really comes into its own when you need help researching your collection for ideas and your star objects,” says Naish. Taking the co-production route does make life more difficult for the designer, admits Whitting, but it also creates a more collaborative, open approach. “We got much better results once we moved to co-production,” says Whitting. “But you have got to be brave.” Meanwhile, not only has co-production contributed to the content of the RAF Museum’s new galleries, but the local community is now far more engaged in the museum overall. “We have visitors that have never been before because they didn’t think the museum was for them,’ says Whitting. “Now they feel it is their own space.” Not only words At Wardown House, interpretation comes in many different forms. “There are so many great ways of getting across the interpretation,” says Naish. “In Luton we have many different languages, so we have used more visual methods and fewer labels and panels.” The redesign has also built display cases into tables in the house’s dining room (now the museum cafe) to show parts of the collection that do not need much interpretation, such as cutlery. In 2018, Bolton Museum completed a £3.8m redevelopment of its Egypt collection, including five newly-designed galleries. The team chose a mass-display strategy over having lots of text and interpretation, says Sam Elliott, the crescent and collections manager at Bolton Council. In one of its spaces, the redevelopment has created five glass arches, “jam-packed” with objects that are displayed all around the visitor. The arches also afford visitors0 a 360 view of the objects. “We wanted to wow people with mass display instead of a lot of text,” says Elliot. “We wanted the experience to be as exciting as the collection. “It is important to have that as we are up against competition from other experiential attractions.” Space to reflect is always important, however: despite the temptation to cram as much information as possible into every exhibition, it is important to build in places for visitors to consider their content. “Moments of pause are important,” says Whitting. “Spaces for people to sit and think or talk about something. We should also remember that the social aspect of visiting a museum is becoming more important to visitors.” Looking to the future In the past, permanent exhibitions were designed as if they would stay like that forever, says Whitting. For example, there would be display cases that could not be moved. However, with budgets increasingly under pressure, it is essential to build in flexible infrastructure at the outset. At the RAF Museum, each gallery can be stripped back to a shell to allow the team to start again. To facilitate that, each space has a large hangar door so that objects can be moved in and out. “Our gift to the next generation is the ability to change things,” adds Whitting. “If you can’t easily change elements of your exhibition, what will happen in the future?” Meanwhile, Naish says sustainability will become increasingly important while building and redeveloping. “We were more conscious of the materials we were using, and of reusing things. Exhibition design is changing as a result of it.” Importance of tech “There is no point in technology for technology’s sake,” says Bailey. “We have done some work with virtual reality, but it is an experience in its own right. We haven’t quite worked out how to integrate it into museum experiences yet. I am also interested in how we can create mixed or augmented reality experiences.” As technology such as VR becomes more affordable it will become more integrated into exhibitions, predicts Bailey. “Exhibitions will become more user-driven, empowering people to take their own journeys rather than telling them.” Whitting adds that museums will always be competing with the increasingly sophisticated digital tech that visitors have at home. “We will never be able to compete with that,” she adds. “How we layer interpretation over the collection to keep it relevant will become even more important.”