The Science Museum’s newest gallery, ‘Information Age: Six Networks That Changed Our World’, designed by Universal Design Studio, was opened by The Queen and The Duke of Edinburgh today and opens to the public tomorrow on 25 October 2014. The landmark gallery will explore the remarkable impact of communications technology, revealing the personal stories behind over 200 years of inventions throughout the 2,500m2 of exhibition space. Information Age will be the first permanent gallery in the UK dedicated to the history of communication and information technology.

The design team at Universal has worked with the architectural volume of the existing gallery to create a familiar space that nevertheless challenges preconceptions of a museum. At the gallery’s centre sits the spectacular 6-metre high aerial tuning coil from Rugby Radio Station. This enormous and strangely beautiful object resembles a series of giant spiders’ webs and was once part of the most powerful radio transmitter in the world. The challenge to develop compelling narratives within the gallery gave opportunities to take object-based storytelling to another level. Conceptually, the designers focused on uniting ‘object’ and ‘interpretation’, which are conventionally separated, to create a seamless experience for the visitor.

http://www.universaldesignstudio.com