Urban Interventions

The brief for the "Urban Interventions" exhibition was to look at how architecture can reinvent and enhance the fabric of the city. Architectural practices from the Clerkenwell area of London were invited to submit work. Project Orange was contacted four weeks prior to the opening and asked by Wordsearch's Peter Murray to develop a deliverable design that met the brief. The site was a disused 1950's shed adjacent to the Farmiloes Building in Clerkenwell; the location for the Biennale.

This temporary exhibition was seen as a collection of signs and street furniture that had been gathered together in a shed; they are literally urban interventions. The industrial space was painted bright yellow, a move derived from the markings on the road outside, and uplit creating a compelling luminous glow. A central runner, which is a series of stripes from the bar code of the Biennale, leads visitors from the street through the exhibition shed and into the courtyard, bar and lecture room beyond. The signs are grouped along the route so that visitors can create their own road map of the exhibition. In order to make the installation democratic the names of all the practices are only on the back sides of the boards, allowing the visitor to view the work impartially as they came in.