Our design, based on Iranian film director Abbas Kiarostami's original concept, focused on his belief that we have lost the ability to look at nature in natural surroundings and that it is only when an item is 'framed' and then placed in an artificial or museum environment, that we observe it in detail.

For this exhibit the V&A provided half its sculpture gallery adjacent to the main foyer. Various designs were explored in an island configuration, however, they lacked interaction, so we adopted a more inclusive approach - trees that the visitor could touch or even hug.

Within this architecturally rich gallery a more defined environment was required. We built an enclosure and clad its vertical surfaces with mirror to provide the illusion of endless space. 80 tubes provided carriers for the "tree bark" prints, made from approx 75 digitally merged images. Without any ceiling stability and given the tree's length and weight of 50kgs, we engineered a 150mm floor to test the support and topple forces, which later became a modular travelling system.

Finally, to provide the illusion of clouds enveloping the treetops, we applied a ceiling that adequately obscured architectural features yet allowed light to pass to simulate a winter's sky. The gallery's naturally shifting light conditions were utilised during the day, while at night tinted floodlights simulated a gathering storm.