DA founder Steven Mifsud MBE and V&A East Interpretation Lead Amy Davis will deliver a session at IMCC Oman where the pair are set to talk about the innovative new V&A East museum currently under construction in London.
The new arts, innovation and education hub will provide a new immersive experience to take visitors behind the scenes and provide unprecedented public access to V&A collections. A short walk across the park, V&A East Museum celebrates global creativity and making relevant to today’s world.
Working with the Direct Access team of disabled access consultants, V&A is integrating accessibility from designing interactives to integrating the real-life experiences of disabled artists, designers and creatives throughout the museums. V&A will focus on how artists and designers work to transform our world, to inspire young people. This session covers the approaches taken by V&A and Direct Access from initial design concept through to installation and gallery launch. How the team approached different challenges, what worked, what could be improved and how this is informing work in the GCC.
V&A East Storehouse will be a 16,000m2 purpose-built home for over 250,000 objects, 350,000 library books and 1,000 archives. Offering an entirely new museum experience, V&A East Storehouse will take visitors on a journey across time, through self-guided tours and changing displays.
Drawing from twenty years of experience delivering accessibility audits for iconic museums like the Royal Armouries and the Science Museum Group, Direct Access’ design consultancy on the new Storehouse will inform the specific arrangement of all aspects at museums which impact the visitor experience; addressing all potential barriers to access. This will include baseline access requirements such as lighting, step-free access, hearing enhancement systems, as well as the facilitation of Changing Places, exhibit information delivered in accessible formats, and ways to increase representation of disabled artists.
Furthermore, Steven and Amy will speak to IMCC’s audience of architects, designers, and museum curators on how inclusion and accessibility has inspired the specific design choices of the Storehouse. It will be a fun, informative, and impactful discussion that will uncover how design choices favoring universal access can inspire future artists, bringing the worlds of art and history to a much wider audience than has ever been seen – going beyond the boundaries of legislation to deliver an truly inclusive experience focused on increased visitor interactivity and creativity.
Register to attend and reserve your spot at the IMCC conference in Oman by signing up here; Registration — International Museum Construction Congress (imcc.me)
The full agenda for the event, which will take place across 3 days (February 25th – February 27th 2024) can be viewed here; Agenda — International Museum Construction Congress (imcc.me)
Unit 3706,
Platinum Tower JLT-PH1-12,
Jumeirah Lakes Towers,
Dubai,
UAE.
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