Exhibition Stand Design
Client Brief
The brief for Sweaty Betty was to design a powerful island stand that would be the central focus of a relevant exhibition that would travel worldwide. In this instance, the exhibition celebrated the end of social distancing and the space allocation was a 10m x 10m platform.
Inspired by Sweaty Betty’s ethos of creating a truly holistic world beyond fitness, that empowers women and brings whole communities together – the concept for this project was: ‘Wrap Around’. Through this title, I explored the protective feeling of being embraced, the notion of being wrapped up in something and the physical movement of coiling and bending.
Concept Design
Sweaty Betty’s following has been referred to as a “cult of women coming together and supporting each other” with a “tribe” mentality. With this in mind, I took a lot of inspiration from modern tribal and social gatherings, in particular referencing the idolised figurative forms and formulaic layout of the Burning Man festival.
The circular formation we see at Burning Man is repeated in many modern buildings of worship today, one in particular formed the keystone to my design: The Bahá’í Temple of worship in Chile. The building displays a repetition of nine wings that wrap around the structure like protective, cupped hands. It was this shape that inspired my repeated motif of the protective hand wrapping around this talk and meditation space, bringing people in and holding everyone together.
