Spotlight | Designing accessible exhibitions

Designing inclusive and accessible spaces for visitors should be at the heart of all exhibition design. But in the past, museums have been guilty of not thinking about accessibility at the inception of projects and have run the risk of different audiences’ enjoyment becoming an afterthought.

Fortunately, a change in attitude has meant that anti-ableist approaches to exhibition design are now on the rise. Here, some key exhibition designers talk about recent projects that highlight inclusive and accessible design for diverse audiences and share advice on embedding this practice in the sector.

Museums Journal spoke to designers who have worked on projects that highlight best practice when it comes to inclusion and access - and asked them how the sector can embed this work.

Musée Nationalde la Marine, Paris | Casson Mann

“Visitors to the Musée National de la Marine in Paris, which reopened in November 2023 following a €72.2m revamp, will encounter a monumental “wave” – an 8m-tall and 20m-long projection of the crashing ocean, with a soundscape, rumbling vibrations, the smell of oil spillages and touch objects combining to create a space fizzing with the drama and power of the sea.

“The installation is based on Casson Mann’s concept of “sensory logic”; by giving all senses the same attention we give sight, the story can be accessed by more people than ever before.

“The museum holds France’s outstanding collection of maritime objects. Items in the collection range from ship models and shipwreck paintings to modern diving suits and lighthouse equipment. These objects reveal thrilling and treacherous stories of the navy, the sea and the people connected to it.

“The museum was determined to bring these stories to a wider audience. Thorough consultation was essential in getting this right. People with varying sight, hearing and intellectual needs tested ongoing design ideas at workshops and provided insight into what worked well and what didn’t.

“With the guidance also of specialist consultants, Polymorphe Design, one of the key design concepts formed: a series of sculptural “landmarks” that burst into the visitor’s journey to immerse them in the stories of life at sea. These landmarks bring the story to visitors through a rich variety of sensory means, giving everyone a comfortable way into the narrative.

“On a small scale, particular details make a difference. Throughout the museum there are eight mediation tables, giving visitors objects to touch, screens with audio descriptions and translation into French Sign Language, as well as “easy to read and understand” and braille
texts. We worked closely with Praline, which developed the graphics and signage for the museum.

“The colour contrast, typography and text size ensure that visitors can comfortably read at a reasonable distance.

“The displays are designed to accommodate “toned-down” time slots during the week. For example, the Wave projection is slowed down and the dynamic lighting is presented as fixed.

“Beyond the specific exhibition design approach, the museum placed a ‘Snoezelen’-inspired room along the visitor route. This calm space, with soft fibre-optic lights and gentle activities, was designed particularly for neurodiverse people.

“By thinking differently about how we tell stories, we created a radically inclusive exhibition that tells an in-depth story through the breadth of our senses.”

Kirsty Kelso is the director of content and communications at Casson Mann

Wonderlab: The Bramall Gallery, National Railway Museum York | De Matos Ryan

“Opened in 2023, Wonderlab: The Bramall Gallery at the National Railway Museum in York, which is part of the Science Museum Group, is an interactive Stem-focused gallery designed to equip and inspire seven to 14-year olds with the engineering skills and aptitude to meet and embrace the challenges and opportunities of the future.

“The overall gallery is conceived as an “engineering playground” to be discovered in exciting, permissive and playful ways, through self-guided exploration with no prescribed journey.

“Accessibility is intrinsic to the museum’s vision, so designing a gallery that could be enjoyed by visitors and staff with diverse knowledge levels, backgrounds, disabilities or additional requirements was at the heart of our approach.

“Each of the 18 unique interactive exhibits was developed through rigorous testing by more than 1,200 individuals to ensure their learning objectives would be met for different audience groups, as well as their inclusivity in terms of colour contrast, heights, tactility, reach ranges and controls for those with limited dexterity.

“We also worked with Emily Yates, an access consultant at Mima design agency, as well as special educational needs and disabilities specialists.

“A core objective of the project was to engage more than one sense at all times, so wherever possible, exhibits were designed to be explored through sound and touch, as well as visual perception.

“Touch and action points are highlighted in bright and contrasting colours to be easily identified, with tactile component parts designed to engage blind or partially sighted visitors.

“For example, the Magnetic Liquid interactive – tiny magnetic particles suspended in a non-magnetic fluid –includes a tactile unit enabling visitors to feel the extraordinary shapes this material can create. Feel the Force allows visitors to test concepts of aerodynamics on their bodies, while Friction Finder presents numerous tactile sensory opportunities.

“The open plan “playground” provides opportunities for gathering, interaction and engagement between visitors and various hub areas. To encourage and enable users of differing abilities to work together to figure out solutions, easier actionable elements are situated next to complex ones. The Big Machine interactive, for example, uses a variety of mechanisms such as ramps, pulleys, steps and conveyor belts to move fluorescent balls along the structure, using forces and friction.

“As many of the interactives are physical and noisy, acoustic timber panelling and furniture was introduced around the gallery to help absorb sound and provide material warmth against the robust materiality of the original workshop.

“Quieter, more reflective areas provide academic and more practical number-free puzzles. Images have been used to explain interactives and videos are subtitled.

“Points of interaction and workstations are designed to be accessible to wheelchair users, providing appropriate work height and knee recesses. Seating of varying heights, with and without backs and armrests, is located around the gallery. Clear width spaces of 1,200mm have also been designed next to certain seats to allow those with mobility equipment to laterally transfer.

“Following principles of universal design means that measures for accessibility – such as regular intervals of seating, turning circles and routes for wheelchair users, accessible toilets, enlarged cubicles, colour contrast and easy-read formats and pictograms – benefit all visitors, and are vital to the overall success of the gallery.”

Anat Talmor is the design director of De Matos Ryan

Birmingham Botanical Gardens | Creative Core

“Planning accessibility should always be guided by your audiences and by the spirit of place. That’s been our ethos at Birmingham Botanical Gardens, which is implementing a five-year transformation project supported by the National Lottery Heritage Fund.

“In collaboration with the project’s access consultant (Mima) and activity planner (Julia Holberry Associates), we carried out consultations to understand the needs and expectations of the gardens’ diverse audiences. Our target groups included people with additional cognitive and physical needs, people suffering from mental health challenges, new arrivals to the UK such as refugees, and people suffering from homelessness and addiction.

“The groups broadened our understanding of what access means. It led us to design behavioural zones supported by pre-visit information, co-created trail packs, tactile interventions and a multilingual digital presence.

“The approach aims to help visitors navigate and feel confident using the gardens, signposting where they can encounter a sensory experience, be playful, take a moment to reflect, climb a tree and engage with interpretation (or avoid it).

“Developing a more accessible and inclusive content strategy meant avoiding a wholly western horticultural voice, drawing instead on cultural understandings of world plants and inviting community co-creation of the gardens’ knowledge base.

“Our approach to access in Birmingham has been about making people feel confident to use the space, while enjoying and getting what they need from it.”

Holly Roberts is Creative Core’s interpretation coordinator

World Gallery, Horniman Museum and Gardens, London | Ralph Appelbaum Associates

“The World Gallery at the Horniman Museum and Gardens in south London explores the richness and diversity of human life around the world through displays of more than 3,000 objects from the collection.

“Different cultures and ways of life from five continents – Africa, America, Europe, Asia and Oceania – are revealed to visitors through immersive object-focused encounters.

“Each encounter takes visitors on a journey into a specific place and time, exploring different ways of understanding what we value and how we live. Engaging interactives across the gallery provide opportunities for visitors to touch, smell, imagine and invent.

“Given the many cultures and nations being represented in the gallery, the project had several curators, who acted as mediators with varying stakeholder groups, including a youth panel, teachers and volunteers.

“Access was a key consideration in the development of the project. Our team at Ralph Appelbaum Associates worked with Mica, an international architects firm based in north London, to ensure the gallery is as physically accessible as possible, providing seating and wheelchair access throughout the space.

“The Horniman’s Access Advisory Group, a diverse group of individuals with lived experiences of disability, provided feedback on the designs from a range of perspectives, such as for visitors with partial hearing or sight and those with autism and learning needs.

“This influenced the design in several ways, from the choice of the size of the typeface on text panels to the inclusion of tactile gallery maps and a colour-coded gallery navigation system, and hearing loops embedded in all audiovisual media.

“A series of specially developed Dialogue Labels throughout the gallery, created with the Horniman’s English for Speakers of Other Languages group, provides an additional thread of interpretation that helps visitors to make connections to their own lives and offers simple prompts for parents/carers to initiate dialogue.

“An important principle for the design was that the communities represented in the gallery had a strong voice – they speak first about themselves.

“Each of the gallery’s encounters opens with a quote, story, song or poem from these “first voices” – there’s a Zulu lullaby, the dying words of Chief Crowfoot of the Blackfoot Nation, a passage from the Ramakien, a Kiribati poem, and lyrics by the Nigerian singer Wizkid. These are followed by the “museological voice” – the voices of anthropologists and curators – to provide information and context.”

Sarah Pollard is the director of physical design at Ralph Appelbaum Associates

Jason and the Adventure of 254, Wellcome Collection, London | Martin McGrath Studio

“Jason and the Adventure of 254, an exhibition by artist Jason Wilsher-Mills at the Wellcome Collection, centred accessibility in the design process. It focused on an exploration of the body, drawing on the artist’s experience of becoming disabled as a child. Delivered through large-scale sculptures, narrative dioramas and illustrations, the exhibition reimagined a series of stories from Jason’s life

“It was fundamental to the project to ensure Wilsher-Mills’ work, his stories and the supporting interpretation were presented in a highly accessible way, while also transporting visitors into a “magically real” environment.

“The design brief set out clear aims and was based on learnings from previous projects, as well as internal guidelines that make access core to the process. This ongoing work is informed by consultation with disabled creative collaborators, user groups, experts in particular formats, and a commitment to prototyping and testing.

“The resulting solutions are not based on one designer’s interventions, but on a set of tested ideas and conventions that have been co-authored by colleagues, external designers, critical friends and specialist consultants.

“The access offer for the exhibition included a digital guide with audio description stops linked to a tactile line, British Sign Language videos, easy-to-read visual stories, transcripts for audiovisual content and large-print books.

“Significant time and resources were allocated to testing before we moved on to full-scale and more resolved prototypes that could be user tested. Viewing heights, reach distances to interactive buttons, text sizes, colour and contrast, and reflective light values were tested in gallery lighting conditions.

“As the exhibition is designed for touring, the solutions had to be durable and easy to disassemble, reassemble and transport.

“Working towards the same aim, everyone from project manager and access lead Georgia Monk, curator Shamita Sharmacharja to artwork fabricators and carpenters learned new methods, with our practices expanded by the process.

“Briefs often ask designers for accessible, sustainable and cost-effective solutions. While designers do play a significant role in developing ideas, institutions must invest and recalibrate to support designers and contractors to meet these aims and accelerate the solutions we need for more accessible and sustainable exhibitions and experiences that are kind to people and the planet.”

Martin McGrath is the director of Martin McGrath Studio