A Night at the Museum: Attending the Launch of the Tools for Transition Exhibition
Author: Dr Veronica Albarran Carrillo, Research Associate, Cardiff University
Connecting, communicating, and collaborating within the Transforming Homes consortium involves a wide range of activities. From curating our bi-monthly newsletter to organising events and webinars, to keeping our social media channels updated, we ensure that our work not only supports the delivery of different work packages but also reaches the key stakeholders involved in upscaling home transformation. Our aim is simple: to ensure our message is clear, engaging, and able to inspire people to get involved in shaping healthier, better homes.
One of the most exciting activities within our work package has been collaborating with Future Observatory, the Design Museum’s national programme for the green transition. Future Observatory supports the delivery of Transforming Homes and the three other Green Transition Ecosystems (GTEs): Design HOPES, Future Island–Island, and Public Map Platform. Over the past ten months, Professor Jo Patterson and I have worked closely with curators from the Design Museum on Tools for Transition, an exhibition now open on the museum’s top floor, showcasing the design research underpinning the GTEs.
The journey to this exhibition began with Abbie Adams, one of the Design Museum’s curators, visiting the team to exchange knowledge and ideas. Abbie met researchers, explored how our research ecosystem functions, and saw first-hand the demonstration homes in Bristol and Swansea, where design solutions will be applied and better understood in real-world scenarios. The process also included a roundtable discussion between TH team representatives and Saqqra, a London-based design studio independently commissioned by Future Observatory to design a piece drawing inspiration from our research. Alongside this, we spent months working within our consortium to gather resources, refine narratives, and ensure the exhibition would accurately represent the complexity and potential of the Transforming Homes project.
On Thursday 11th September 2025 the Tools for Transition exhibition was launched as part of the closing ceremony of the 2025 World Design Assembly. The Transforming Homes exhibition is dividing into four themes:
- The homes – highlighting both the urgent need to adapt existing housing for the future and the historical context of the 1920–1940 low-rise council-built ‘Homes for Heroes.’
- Short-term fixes and long-term solutions – exploring the challenges these homes face, from damp and mould to energy inefficiency, while showcasing our research into surveying, testing, modelling, and monitoring their performance to better understand their current conditions and potential for change.
- Co-design – a process that has involved many stakeholders. The exhibition focuses on our work with residents of demonstration homes and interwar estates across the UK, placing lived experience at the centre to co-create solutions.
- ‘Herth’ – a commissioned artwork that reimagines the hearth as a symbolic and functional centre of the home.
Being able to stand in the exhibition space was deeply rewarding. For us, Tools for Transition is more than a display; it is a platform to share our research with a much wider audience. We hope it sparks curiosity, conversation, and engagement among visitors, showing how design and research can meaningfully contribute to the future of housing. The exhibition will be displayed from September 2025 to August 2026. Further information can be found at the Design Museum’s website.
The evening was made even more memorable by the announcement from AHRC Executive Chair, Professor Christopher Smith, of further funding to allow the GTEs to continue their work for another two and a half years. This second phase will focus on delivering tangible outcomes that can support sustainable growth. It has been an exciting journey so far, and we are eager to see how the project continues to develop in the coming years.
Credits: 1-3 Veronica Albarran Carrillo, 4 -6 Dilek Arslan