The competition has been won by emerging practice IDK, working with graphic designer Studio Bergini, lighting designer ZNA, structural engineer Structure Workshop and MEP engineers P3R.
They won the estimated £300,000 contract, defeating rival bids led by CAN, Mitre & Mondays and SOUP; Casson Mann; David Kohn Architects; JA Projects; and Studio MUTT with Motive.
The appointment comes a year after IDK completed a new David Bowie Centre at V&A East Storehouse on the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park.
The IDK-led team will create a major basement gallery and collections store in spaces beneath the 1963 TP Bennett and Ove Arup-designed Poultry Market, which neighbours the 1883 General Market building.
IDK will be responsible for 3D exhibition design, 2D graphic design, and input into audio-visual elements, coordinating with a wider consultant team to deliver a multipurpose and highly interactive space that will serve as both a core exhibition and the principal collections store for the museum.
The museum’s new home has been designed by Stanton Williams and Asif Khan, working with conservation expert Julian Harrap, following a competition win in 2016. The museum is set to open towards the end of this year, although later stages of the redevelopment are not set to complete until 2028.
In 2019, German studio Atelier Brückner was chosen to design the museum’s first fit-out commission involving a subterranean Past Time exhibition, while last year, the museum launched a search for a team to create a ‘spectacular exhibition with a ‘compelling and unforgettable’ 700m² part of the General Market’s basement known as The Vaults.