The layout of the BIO27 exhibition

BIO27 SUPER VERNACULARS design concept

Wood, in various forms and uses, has been an essential part of Slovenian culture since prehistoric times, as 59% of Slovenia is covered in forests. Firewood is a cheap, locally sourced and rather popular heating source in the countryside. The process of seasoning firewood is most effective when wooden logs are stacked along the sunny side of a building facade or in free-standing formations of various shapes and sizes in the landscape. Walls, planes, piles and lines of firewood are a part of Slovenian visual landscape. While being a rudamentary heating source, firewood comes in standardized lengths, due to requirements of various types of contemporary heating stoves.

In the Supervernaculars exhibition design, logs are used as modular, stackable elements. By only using the standard lengths of logs all the material can be returned to the supplier and sold further to end costumers that will use it for heating. While in the museum, logs will also have dried and will have a better heating value as a result.

The exhibition design explores the aesthetic potential of this raw, traditional material, which is used in simple but surprising, unusual ways in order to create functional exhibition infrastructure while also creating a spatial intervention that evokes the topic of BIO 27. By using simple techniques like cutting thin cuts into the logs or binding logs with reused tension belts and reusable lightning rods and adding planes of honeycomb boards where necessary, the logs are transformed into abstract shapes and spatial experiences while still adapting to the needs of exhibition materials.