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Mariam Issoufou x Design Museum London x Snap

Adapt: Architecture and Climate Change is a collaboration between Mariam Issoufou, Snap Inc and the Design Museum to use newly developed AR filters to visualize the effects of extreme climate change. The project formed part of the Design Museum’s fifth anniversary celebration in their current building. Visitors or passersby were prompted to ‘Open their Snapchat’ to be able to experience a new exhibit, as the exterior of the building transforms in AR, to bring the realities of extreme weather due to climate change to life. In turn, the building materials themselves transform, to highlight the way we can adapt to combat these challenges.

Issoufou chose to explore how architecture can adapt to extreme weather conditions, to not only highlight the ongoing effects of climate change but to demonstrate a tangible way that buildings can be adapted and repurposed to face contemporary problems. 

Through the Snapchat app, while standing in front of the Design Museum, visitors could change the facade into a series of four extreme weather conditions: heavy rains, desert conditions, huricane and blizzard. With every iteration the building itself morphs to respond to the particular climate. For example, with heavy rains as a permanent condition, the Design Museum building adapts to show what would happen to the building with constant moisture that speeds up its decay, fighting mold, cracks and so on. The building adapts by casting off its glass layer and is wrapped instead with a mesh-like film that makes the façade porous and eases ventilation. It becomes a tropical building that works with the elements rather than fighting them.