Formafantasma Designs Ocean & Climate Village for Prada and UNESCO's IOC

By Grace Kim

Ocean & Climate Village, a "travelling science exhibition" designed by Italian studio Formafantasma, opens at Prada's Luna Rossa base in Cagliari, Sardinia, and runs until 15 October 2026. Prada developed the show with UNESCO's Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission (IOC), the UN body that coordinates ocean science, as part of the brand's educational Sea Beyond project.

The venue matters here. The base sits right by the ocean and belongs to Luna Rossa, Prada's sailboat racing syndicate. So the exhibition on ocean literacy literally stands at the water's edge.

How does the design work?

Formafantasma built a lightweight, modular system: a disassemblable, reusable aluminium-and-wood structure. That's the mechanism behind the "travelling" label — after the Cagliari run ends, the whole exhibition can be packed up, moved and rebuilt elsewhere.

The content is split into four sections:

• One Ocean
• The Climate Engine
• Biodiversity
• Ocean Anomalies

Together, they walk visitors through the connections between biological, climatic and geological processes, so people leave with a better grasp of how the ocean shapes our environment.

To make that concrete, Formafantasma worked with a craftsman from an Italian natural history museum on lifelike animal models, including a blue crab and a turtle.

Why design instead of data?

The exhibition targets visitors of all ages, and that constraint drove the design decisions. Formafantasma laid out the space on multiple levels to keep children engaged, and produced a leaflet that explains terms such as CO2 and biodiversity in plain language.

Francesca Santoro, senior programme officer at the IOC, explained the reasoning at the opening. "Sometimes the concepts [on show] are very abstract for us – I could tell you data, I could show you graphs and a number of scientific studies, but especially for lay people, it's important to find the hooks," she told Dezeen.

"I guess you will always remember this because it's beautiful; it makes [the information] look really nice," she continued. "The idea was to use design as an educational tool and as a way to attract people's attention."

What does this change for Formafantasma?

The studio's track record shows a consistent line in environmental communication. It previously designed a children's picture book about the environment, and earlier this year it was appointed ecology advisor for the Serpentine Galleries in London.

Ocean & Climate Village pushes that practice into exhibition architecture, where the sustainability argument sits in the build itself — a reusable structure rather than a one-off installation. Because the show is designed to travel, its next stop after Sardinia is the practical question for the partners, and a test of whether modular science exhibitions can have a life beyond a single venue.

Ocean & Climate Village runs at the Luna Rossa base, Cagliari, Sardinia, from 10 to 15 October 2026. Photography is courtesy of Prada Group.