House of Artisans

Tellart partnered with exhibition architects KDJ to undertake a complete redesign of The House of Artisans - a national crafts center in Abu Dhabi.

Project by: Tellart & Kossmann De Jong
Role: Concept development, Interaction design, UX/UI, prototyping
Illustrations & Motion graphics: Like Milder
Client: Qasr Al Hosn, Abu Dhabi
Photography: Mohamed Somji

Craft pavilions

Three semi-open indoor structures present visitors with stories of key local crafts - Al Sadu, Talli, and Khoos.

At the epicenter of each story, visitors encounter an interactive display, allowing visitors to experience each craft as if they were the craftspeople themselves.

Learning to tell the craft

"To tell a story, you first have to know it."
The journey began by first becoming immersed in these crafts. Making quick paper models, braiding strings, or taking apart finished craft pieces. 

This way, we began generating insights and formulating ideas for how might we tell these stories in an experiential way.

From insight to the experience

"How do you create an experience of a craft that takes generations of practice?"
 
Here, rapid prototyping and collaborating across the team came first, tidy artboards… second.
From paper models to motion graphics. We used a range of media to bring ideas forth. Each time identifying and building upon moments that work the best.

Designing for humans

To create actual interfaces we used a combination of collaborative design tools such as Figma and a series of projectors. Such setup enabled us to design and review each experience directly at a real scale.