V&A Design and Disability: Accessible Exhibition Designs

Type: Workshops

Year: 2024

Location: London

DisOrdinary Architecture Contributors: Jos Boys, Chris Laing, Abi Palmer, Mandy Redvers-Rowe, Helen Stratford and Natasha Trotman

V&A Contributors: Sam Brown (Lead Designer 3D) and Evonne Mackenzie (Head of Design), alongside wider members of the design team

The DisOrdinary Architecture Project was commissioned by the Victoria and Albert (V&A) Museum in-house exhibition design team to support their exhibition design development for a show called Design and Disability, curated by Natalie Kane and Reuben Liebeskind at V&A South Kensington. Both a “celebration and a call to action” (words of the curators), the show aimed to start from disability as a positive design generator and showcase disabled, Deaf, and neurodiverse people and communities as central creators of products and spaces. 

The in-house exhibition design team were keen to make the show itself as accessible as possible, going beyond compliance to make a space that truly welcomes diverse bodies and minds. Through a series of five workshops, led by Mandy Redvers-Rowe with Jos Boys, we worked together through different aspects of the design development process – key issues and opportunities; navigating space and content; engaging with the work; and accessible information.  For each session we were joined by a guest disabled creative to bring a variety of lived experiences and perspectives to the project. The workshops included visits to an existing gallery and show, experiential activities and discussion. 

“Huge thanks to yourself, Mandy and your team. Each workshop has really shaped the decisions we have been making and hope to put forward.”

Sam Brown, V&A 

Photo of a group of people sat around a table talking with materials on the table.
Photo of a group of people sat around a table talking and engaging with tactile pieces of paper and materials.
Photo of a group of people sat around a table talking and pointing to a screen, with an exhibition design on.
Photo of a group of people sat around a table talking and engaging with tactile pieces of paper and materials.
Photo of a group of people engaging with tactile pieces of paper and materials.
Photo of a group of people walking around an exhibition, with a guide dog.

Design and Disability open on 7th June, with a special tour DisOrdinary Architecture and the curators on June 17th. The show runs until February 2026.

Photo of the Design and Disability banner outside the V&A, with a yellow background and black text.
Photo of an exhibition room, with blue walls with Disability Justice t-shirts and posters hanging on them. In the room there is a bench and shelf with booklets on.
Close up photo of the bottom edge of the exhibition, lit up to show the edges/boundaries: with a pale textured surface shape on the floor to indicate where display elements are for cane users.
Close up photo of a blue reflective surface, used at the transition points in the exhibition to allow people to see what’s around the corner.
Photo of a rest point in the Design and Disability exhibition, with a bench, stools on the floor, reading material and soft lighting. In the background are other rooms in green, blue and orange.
Photo of the green ‘Living’ section of the Design and Disability exhibition, with a white woman in a wheelchair looking at the display cabinets and sloped text.
Photo of the green ‘Living’ section of the Design and Disability exhibition, with a sloped table with three tactile items on to touch - a vibrating jacket, a ball and a map.
Photo of a one of a pair of orange chairs - reproduced from an installation by The DisOrdinary Architecture Project for Theaterformen in Braunschweig Germany 2023, with two sets of listening devices nearby.
Photo of the orange section of the Design and Disability exhibition, with two woman looking at the display cabinets and sloped text.
Photo of the final section of the Design and Disability exhibition, with a reading table and chair. In the background a film plays. On the table and chairs, there are tactile signatures along the edges, which each indicate a different zones in the e
Close up of a table, to show the tactile signatures along the edges, which each indicate a different zone, and nearby stool.
Credit wall at end of exhibition, with mention of DisOrdinary Architecture
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