Fieldwork Facility Transforms V&A East Storehouse Wayfinding with Gen Z Aesthetic
In an innovative endeavor to captivate a broader audience, particularly younger demographics, the Hackney-based design firm, Fieldwork Facility, has unveiled its groundbreaking wayfinding system for London's V&A East Storehouse. This project, recognized by the Dezeen Awards, redefines how visitors engage with the museum's extensive collection of 250,000 art, craft, and design artifacts, now accessible to the public for the very first time. The core challenge was to create a navigation system that resonates with individuals who might typically find museums intimidating or exclusionary.
To achieve this, Fieldwork Facility's founder, Robin Howie, and his team immersed themselves in the user experience of widely used Gen Z applications. Their goal was to imbue the museum's signage and interactive points with a familiar, intuitive digital language. This involved an initial "onboarding text" that greets visitors, mimicking the first-time app experience and providing a quick orientation. The signage incorporates diverse media, such as printed text, ticker tape displays, and unique recycled paper tiles featuring recycled plastic letters. These tiles introduce a color-coded system—yellow for viewing galleries, green for restoration labs, and pink for the Study Centre—to guide visitors through the various sections. The modular design of these tiles, akin to Scrabble pieces, allows museum staff to easily update information based on rotating exhibits, providing a dynamic and adaptable wayfinding solution.
The design extends to a bespoke monospaced typeface, Spiller Mono, developed to complement the individual letter tiles, drawing a parallel to the early days of computing and coding. This deliberate choice reinforces the museum's "building as software" concept. Beyond navigation, the system encourages interaction through interpretive labels designed as modular kits that attach to the museum's existing storage infrastructure and dedicated "expression points" where visitors can share feedback using a coin-voting mechanism. This holistic approach, from adaptable signage to interactive feedback systems, aims to make the V&A East Storehouse an open, engaging, and participant-driven cultural space, aligning with modern digital user experiences and promoting sustainability through reusable design elements.
This pioneering design strategy transforms the museum visit into an engaging, interactive journey, fostering a sense of belonging and agency for all. By embracing principles of intuitive design and adaptability, the V&A East Storehouse sets a new standard for cultural accessibility, demonstrating that traditional institutions can evolve to meet contemporary expectations and inspire future generations.
