LDP designs interiors at V&A shop

Lumsden Design Partnership has created the interiors for the Victoria & Albert Museum’s 167m2 Exhibition Shop, which opens to the public tomorrow, as the organisation’s design masterplan continues to unfold.

The £150 000 shop provides – for the first time – a purpose-built space to house retail operations for the museum’s temporary exhibitions. It will bear the existing retail identity developed by Williams Murray Hamm (News, DW 29 November 2001).

According to a source close to the project, the two main requirements of the brief were to produce a design that was flexible enough to convey the atmosphere of different shows and to handle high volumes of visitor numbers.

The design also had to fit within the architectural ‘gameplan’ overseen by architect Eva Jiricna.

Initially, the brief sought to address the museum’s retail offer as a whole, but this was scaled back. However, The Holmes Wood Consultancy, working on overall signage at the museum, may yet have some input as to how the overall retail offer develops, the source suggests.

The London consultancy was appointed in March 2002 following a pitch against Carte Blanche and 20/20. No-one at LDP would comment on the project.