The Architecture of Closed Worlds

Designed at Pentagram in 2018
Client: Storefront for Art and Architecture
Team: Natasha Jen
Creative Lead: Jang Hyun Han, Joseph Han
Role: Book design, Typography design, creative direction

The Architecture of Closed Worlds, Or, What Is the Power of Shit? examines the evolution of closed systems in 20th-century architecture, design, and engineering—from NASA’s space program to countercultural experiments in autonomous living. The book documents the research behind the 2016 exhibition Closed Worlds, presented at the Storefront for Art and Architecture in New York. Pentagram extended its award-winning exhibition design into the book, published by Storefront in collaboration with Lars Müller Publishers.

I worked closely with the book’s author and exhibition curator, Lydia Kallipoliti, to shape the visual identity. Closed Worlds archives 37 historical living prototypes from 1928 to today, all functioning as self-sustaining, resource-regenerating systems, including space capsules, submarines, and office buildings. The subject remains highly relevant, touching on themes of global warming, recycling, and sustainability.

The exhibition design was itself conceived as a closed system, featuring a custom typeface, display methodology, and organizational structure. The book adapts these visual concepts, incorporating the same branding, typography, and data visualizations. It opens with a timeline of prototypes, each represented by a simple symbolic shape, while color-coded bar graphs map the life cycles of resources within each system. These graphs also extend onto the fore edge, visually connecting the case studies across the book.

The custom CLOSED typeface reflects the idea of enclosed, self-sustaining environments by minimizing negative space within and between letterforms. Designed with precise 45° and 90° cuts, the letters interlock into a seamless, continuous pattern. The book concludes with a repurposed version of the exhibition’s “Speculative Histories” collage, presented as a rich visual portfolio offering a parallel narrative of enclosed spaces.

Press: Lars Müller Publishers, Storefront for Art and Architecture, Closed Worlds, etc.