A modular, adaptable and fully circular exhibition that charts the multifarious business transformations paving the way for positive climate action today.

We conceived, designed, and produced a modular, adaptable, fully circular exhibition for New York Climate Week 2024. This work builds on our long-term collaboration with Ingka Group (IKEA) and their science partner, Project Drawdown, on Action Speaks—a global movement for businesses and organisations demonstrating the power of positive climate action.

Within the Javits Center, the exhibition presented a selection of radical climate positive projects from businesses, organisations and communities around the world. More than a showcase, it served as a platform for accountability, and a rallying call for collective, systemic climate action.

Conceptualising a Vision to Catalyse Transformative Action

In 2023, Superflux conceived, designed and produced Ingka Group’s first Action Speaks Summit to spotlight genuine climate positive efforts in the business sphere. Action Speaks—backed by Project Drawdown’s in-depth scientific research—highlights companies implementing real, measurable changes to meet their climate goals, challenging and inspiring others to follow suit.

Aligned with its core message of urgent climate action, we are committed to creating a lasting design legacy, ensuring this movement continues to drive collective change. The exhibition’s fully modular structure embodied our commitment to circularity—from Action Speaks’ strategically crafted graphic identity to the intricate physical structures of this exhibition.

Climate Action in Action

A series of modular islands greeted visitors upon arrival at the Nest Climate Campus space in the Javits Centre, pops of colour in a monochromatic sea. A tall, bold panel proclaimed this as the Action Speaks showcase, outlining the platform’s future-oriented mission to inspire and accelerate climate action through collaboration. Stepping under a vibrant banner, people were invited to wander through this figurative archipelago, composed of six interconnected modular structures assembled from timber cylinders.

The islands served as multi-levelled displays for existing examples of global, science-based climate solutions helmed by communities, organisations, and corporations. Grouped under Action Speaks’ six key program topics, these initiatives presented available solutions to reduce the climate impacts of how we eat, power, grow, move, make, and finance. Weaving their way through the exhibition, visitors were invited to explore tangible examples of existing climate action projects, from glass containers filled with Houdini Sportswear’s compostable clothes and Kelp Blue’s seaweed biostimulants to scale models of Minesto’s underwater kite and IKEA’s solar panels.

Accessible from no one predetermined entrance, the exhibition offered multiple points of entry, inviting business leaders, NGOs, and the public to pave their own route around the Action Speaks showcase. This was a spatial reminder that while there is no single way to begin navigating the climate crisis, each individual step across this critical threshold matters.

Circularity Through Design

While “recycling” is the most famous of the 3 R’s in the current cultural climate, our design approach emphasised the first two steps in promoting environmental sustainability: reduction and adaptive reuse. We were guided by the overarching notion of circularity, the sustainable and economically efficient practice of optimising the use of resources and minimising waste throughout both the production and consumption cycle.

Embodying the principles we sought to showcase, we chose a modular framework made of flatpack, lightweight materials to give us both flexibility with the fixings and a low-impact mode of packaging and transportation. The islands were assembled using timber from FSC-certified forests in Europe to reduce their environmental impact, while the attachments were 3D-printed in our studio to ensure we made only as many as we needed. All surfaces were made from hard-wearing and sustainable materials that can now be re-used for future exhibitions, creating an enduring legacy for Action Speaks. Their modules can also be reconfigured for different spaces and adapted for different layouts—within the exhibition, they were used to build seats as well as plinths.

This circularity extended to the graphic design. Repurposing the optimistic, fluorescent colours from the first Action Speaks showcase, we once again used orange to represent present-day challenges and green to signify hopeful futures. This year, we also extended the colour palette to include hues of grey and yellow. All the graphics were produced on Falconboard for sustainable and resistant high-quality printing.

Acknowledgements

With huge thanks to our commissioners, Ingka Group (IKEA), their partners Project Drawdown and the World Economic Forum.

We would also like to thank the various communities, organisations, and corporations whose work featured in this exhibition. More information can be found on the Action Speaks platform.

Specifically, we would like to thank our close collaborators Ludvig Liljeqvist, Lusyanna Vuorenniemi Pelaez, and Kristie De Groot and extend thanks to Ingka CEO Jesper Brodin and CSO Karen Pflug.

Action Speaks Summit & platform by Ingka Group.

Exhibition vision, concept, design & fabrication by Superflux.

Special thanks to our project team Jon Ardern, Anab Jain, Ed Lewis, Sarah Brin, Matt Edgson, Mon Cano, and Amy Haigh.

Program & furniture by 
IKEA US

IKEA US event support by APCO

Scientific guidance by
 Project Drawdown

Online platform by World Economic Forum

Graphic design by Galicheva–Gahlen

Photography & videography by Bilyana Dimitrova

Graphics production by DMR Graphics

Motion graphic reels by Content Factory at Ingka Group

Venue and Installation support by T3, Eric Forman Studio, Curiosity Works Inc, Teamsters Local 237, Local Union No. 3 IBEW, NXT Events Media Group and The New York City District Council of Carpenters

Transport & furniture assembly by TaskRabbit