Lightbox | International Centre for Life, UK

Located within the Life Science Centre, Lightbox is a dynamic new permanent visitor experience designed to inspire curiosity, experimentation, and discovery through the immersive exploration of sound, light, and water.

Created as a highly interactive environment for visitors of all ages, Lightbox combines science, art, and play to encourage hands on engagement with the fundamental principles that shape the world around us. Through a series of large scale installations and experimental exhibits, visitors are invited to explore waveforms, motion, reflection, energy, and perception in an intuitive and memorable way.

Visitor Experience Lighting Design for The Interactive Science Exhibition

Michael Grubb Studio was appointed by the museum to lead the creative vision for all lighting related elements throughout the project. Working collaboratively with exhibition designers AFSB, the client team, artists, fabricators, and specialist exhibit designers, the studio’s award-winning team developed a layered lighting strategy that enhances both the educational and emotional experience of the space.

The lighting design was carefully integrated into every aspect of the visitor journey, transforming Lightbox into an atmospheric and immersive environment unlike any other zone within the centre. From subtle architectural lighting to highly responsive interactive elements, light was used not only as illumination, but as a storytelling and educational medium in its own right.

A key ambition of the project was to create experiences that are simultaneously impactful, accessible, and thought provoking. The exhibits were designed to appeal to a broad demographic — from young children encountering scientific principles for the first time, to adults engaging with the installations on a deeper artistic or technical level.

Guiding Exhibition’s Narrative With Lighting

Among the headline attractions is Europe’s tallest indoor “Tornado” exhibit, a dramatic large scale installation demonstrating the power and behaviour of vortex dynamics. Visitors can also interact with a full body water play experience that explores movement, pressure, and wave interaction through physical participation. The light focused zone features a major immersive artwork that investigates the relationship between motion, colour, rhythm, and perception, creating moments of wonder and reflection throughout the experience.

The project spent eighteen months in development. The result is a visually rich and highly sensory environment that blends science communication with artistic expression.

Through carefully choreographed lighting, spatial atmosphere, and interactive technologies, Lightbox encourages visitors to slow down, experiment, and connect with scientific ideas in new and unexpected ways.