About Living Object..

We are proud to work with our clients to deliver world-leading experiential design. Our approach is defined by close understanding of the clients’ story, and our desire to build a unique rich and multivalent experience that will give our clients competitive advantage in their sector.

We aim to work with our clients to define and agree the unique essence of each assignment. Our process ensures that each project has a signature that responds precisely and appropriately to their needs. We deliver experiences that are at the cutting edge of experience-making in the sector.

We are a multi-disciplinary practice that comprises 3D designers, graphic designers, content co-ordinators, media designers, and project managers. We work to achieve our aims with a host of collaborators such as lighting designers, AV software and hardware designers, writers, translators and sound engineers. We have relationships with a variety of  fabricators who can deliver complex and demanding projects to tight deadlines in many countries around the world. We have an unique track record of delivering design on site, and maintain our relationships long after the project has been completed.

Our unique approach takes us into many different sectors such as retail design, interior design, museum design and corporate showcases. The common denominator of our projects, is unique tailored and rich experience-making delivered on time and on budget.

People

Philip has over 30 years of professional experience as a design director and project manager, with an abundance of experience in leading complex projects. He has worked in the UK, Europe, the Middle East and Africa, taking projects from inception to completion and opening. 

Philip trained first as a furniture designer and maker at the Royal College of Art in London before becoming an exhibition designer and planner. His passion is the use of natural materials to make artfully designed exhibitions. He looks to create poise and grace in all that he designs, and to create designs that awaken the senses.

He briefly taught architecture and interior design courses at the University of Portsmouth and the University of the Creative Arts 2005–8 on both postgraduate and undergraduate programmes. He remains active in design education as External Examiner. He is currently a student mentor at the Royal College of Art in London. 

Since 2008, he has worked at the experience design and planning consultancy Ralph Appelbaum Associates, becoming a Director in 2018. In 2023, Philip set up Living Object with Seun Oduwole with the mission of furthering the design of experience into new fields. Philip has written extensively about the power of design to educate and entertain audiences. His books, Exhibition Design published by Laurence King and Storytelling Exhibitions published by Bloomsbury Visual Arts are required reading on undergraduate and postgraduate design courses. 

Philip’s home, known as the Living Object House, was opened in September 2022 to the public for London’s annual celebration of architecture and design, Open House London. The Living Object House features a collection of Philip’s ceramics and work by prominent contemporary ceramicists.

Iheanyi is a curator of modern and contemporary African art. He is currently a PhD candidate in the Department of Art and Archeology of Princeton University, specializing in African Art History and co-investigator of Museumverse, a project funded by the Humanities Council of Princeton University that connects art and cultural institutions with emerging digital and virtual technologies. He was the Artistic Director of the Centre for Contemporary Art, Lagos and consulting art curator for the J.K. Randle Centre for Yoruba Culture and History, Lagos. He was a 2016 Chevening Scholar at the School of Fine Art, History of Art and Cultural Studies, University of Leeds, earning an M.A. in Art Gallery and Museum Studies. He also received an M.A. in Art History from the University of Nigeria, Nsukka and an M.A. in Art History, Criticism and Conservation from Princeton University. His recent exhibition projects include Samuel Fosso: Affirmative Acts at the Princeton University Art Museum (With Chika Okeke-Agulu and others); Samuel Fosso: The Man with a Thousand Faces at the Walther Collection, Neu-Ulm (with Clothilde Morette and Clara Stratmann); and Uncensored: How Free Are the Arts, (with Joao Simoes). 

Seun is an architect and designer with 22 years of experience spanning across 3 continents, delivering ground breaking cultural, commercial, retail and immersive design projects.

He is a fellow of the directors forum at the Yale Institute for the Preservation of Cultural Heritage and an associate at the Institute of Creative Repair, a research & advocacy think tank developing practices for more regenerative cultural ecosystems in Africa and the global south.

Seun is  passionate about educating young designers through initiatives like the African Alliance for New Design, lectures at the University of Lagos and Central St. Martins, London. Seun joined Living Object in 2023 as a co-founder, with the aim of developing and promoting experiential design with a focus on the interrogation and production of culturally immersive spaces

Seun believes the purpose of architecture is to improve the quality of our built environment through a thoughtful approach to design, creation of immersive user experiences, using architecture as a vehicle for social responsibility and urban regeneration. He has been featured in, The Guardian, CNN Avante Garde, CNN Style, Architectural Digest, Arch Daily, The Economist, Architectural Digest, Architecture of Sub-saharan Africa and Made by Design: a Netflix documentary showcasing key creatives leading the charge on the African continent.

Seun is an unrepentant motorcyclist, guitar player, rower and golfer. Other less interesting hobbies include collecting quirky watches and straps.