Exhibit:Evolution is an MArch 5 studio group studying at the University of Liverpool.
As a group, we are particularly interested in museums and how the public navigate and engage with them and their exhibitions. Through a comprehensive research process studying Liverpool’s museums as a test bed, we have undertaken a thesis design that proposes a redevelopment of London’s Victoria and Albert Museum.
EXHIBIT
EVOLUTION
BEYOND THE
GLASS CASE
hypothesis
This thesis explores how architecture can reposition the museum itself as an active medium of interpretation, rather than a neutral container of artefacts.
Set within the V&A, Exhibit: Evolution proposes a series of spatial interventions that challenge conventional museum hierarchies — shifting the visitor from passive observer to active participant.
The project tests how circulation, material systems, and sensory engagement can be choreographed to create a new curatorial logic: one that unfolds through movement. Kinetic flooring, elevated walkways, and a reprogrammed courtyard structure work collectively to reframe the museum as a site of narrative, energy, and interaction — a building that teaches through experience.
This is not a design for a new museum, but a re-reading of an existing one. By rendering the architecture visible, legible, and inhabitable as exhibit, the project proposes an alternative museology — one grounded in spatial storytelling, embodied knowledge, and the architectural artefact itself.
research by design
The first part of our thesis consisted of analysing four museums in the city of Liverpool. The goal was to gain an overarching understanding of how both museums and the people within them operate on a daily basis. By studying the Museum of Liverpool, the Merseyside Maritime Museum, the Bluecoat Chambers, and the World Museum, we felt adequately equipped to undertake our subsequent thesis design.
Click on the interactive map below to see the data we collected as part of our research.
meet our team
Luke O’Brien
Cadi Rees Jones
Caio Owen