Future Cities Lab: The Making Of An Exhibition

Jerica Liew
Nov 29, 2025
3 min read

Most projects start as briefs, while others begin as conversations.

This one started with a text from an alumnus and ended with our work printed metres tall, wrapping the walls of Singapore’s National Design Centre. Somewhere along the way, KOVA found itself translating 15 years of urban research into a visual system that people could walk through, touch, and experience.

This is how it happened.

A Shared Language in Grids and Clarity

The project began when KOVA was contacted by a member of Future Cities Laboratory Global (FCL Global), a collaboration between ETH Zurich and Singapore's universities (NUS, NTU and SUTD). The organisation was seeking design support to translate FCL's research, spread across 13 different modules, into public-facing, digestible content.

vo trong nghia speaking at podium with microphone, smiling. Yellow and white conference backdrop reads "Future Cities: Design, Policy." Professional setting.

KOVA's approach aligned naturally with the brief. The studio's focus on the Swiss Style (International Typographic Style) resonated with FCL's Swiss institutional roots, making the partnership a logical fit.

Designing An Exhibition Brand Identity

The symposium needed an exhibition identity, something that extended FCL’s corporate brand while standing on its own in physical space.

Exhibition hallway with "Future Cities" text on walls, featuring a yellow circle. Display table with documents. Modern, well-lit setting.

We pared the identity down to its essentials. The yellow stayed as the core cue, while the other colours stepped aside. What emerged was a system that felt clearer and more intentional.

It was our first time developing an exhibition identity at full scale, which meant the work had to operate beyond a screen. Print, distance, lighting and human movement all came into play, and the design needed to hold up across each touchpoint.

Taking cues from the International Typographic Style, the system was anchored by grid logic, clear hierarchy and a left-aligned rhythm that kept information accessible. A single mustard yellow guided the visual language, while small symbols (+) and arrows shaped wayfinding. Typography did the heavy lifting, with form serving communication first.

Designing With Memory Gaps

Man in black suit studies timeline chart on dark wall, displaying project phases from 2010-2019. Yellow highlights and text visible.

The centrepiece was a 15-year timeline wall.

This deliverable went through more than ten drafts, layers of revisions and a long trail of conversations across teams and time zones. Mapping fifteen years of research, leadership, milestones and publications was less a design task and more an excavation. Institutional memory stretches thin over that kind of timeline, so the process felt closer to detective work than layout.

Long hours spent poring over tiny text came with their own physical reminders, but they also sharpened something important. Precision stops being a stylistic choice when every detail carries weight. The project made that uncomfortably clear. Some assignments teach you more about your own practice than you expect. This was one of them.

Wayfinding With 72 Hours To Go

Three posters designed by KOVA with directional arrows and text guide to auditorium areas. Themes: Future Cities, Science, Design, Policy. Yellow and white backgrounds.

Three days before launch, another issue surfaced: wayfinding. Singapore Design Week had covered the National Design Centre in competing posters, and the visual field was already overloaded. Our signage needed to hold its ground without adding to the noise. The only workable answer was restraint. We pared it back to distilled type, clear symbols and straightforward directional logic. The goal was not to outshine the surroundings, but to offer guidance that stayed legible within them.

Sign pointing to auditorium foyer says "Future Cities: Science, Design, and Policy." People walk towards open doors in a dim hallway.

On the Walls

Then came the moment.

Yellow text on a white wall highlights urban challenges with climate change and growth. A blue wall is partially visible on the side.

Seeing the work leave the safety of screens and take over physical walls at one of Singapore’s key design venues was a shift in scale. The manifesto wall was the first encounter. Bright yellow, direct, and placed exactly where the eye lands on entry. Climate, systems and urban futures set the tone before anything else. It functioned as visual infrastructure, shaping how visitors met the exhibition from the first step inside.

Three men sit and converse with microphones, in front of a "Future Cities" backdrop. The mood is engaged. Yellow and black text present.

Our graphics sat beside scientific research across thirteen modules. The task was to create a controlled sense of intensity. Enough distinction to arrest attention. Enough cohesion to hold the modules together as a single body of work.

Exhibition hall with yellow and white signage: "Future Cities: Science, Design, and Policy." Displays with documents and screens, modern and sleek.

This project was a reminder that beyond aesthetics, design is about translation, clarity, and responsibility. Seeing our work operate at architectural scale, sit beside real research, and guide real human movement changed how we think about what a design studio can be. FCL trusted us with their story, and we built the framework to help people see it. And honestly, that's the good stuff.