Exhibition work is architecture with the clock running. Eleven days to build, three days on show, one night to strip out. There is no snagging period, and nothing forgives a decision made late.
The brief from M.M. Noorbhoy & Co. was to be findable in a hall of four hundred stands without shouting. We answered with a circle. In a plan grid of rectangles, a curve reads as a landmark from the far end of the room, and it lets visitors approach from any direction rather than queueing at a front.
One idea, held
Everything else followed from a single lit column at the centre. Product shelving turned outward from it, the signage ring floated above it, and the planting softened its base. When the budget tightened, we cut the secondary elements and kept the column — which is, in the end, the only editing rule that has ever worked for us.
A stall has three days to explain a company. Give it one idea and let the rest get out of the way.
The Sri Lanka Institute of Architects gave it Best Overall Trade Stall at Architect 2024. We were pleased, briefly, and then went back to the workshop — the pieces were already booked for a showroom fit-out the following month.