Faculty installation featured at 2025 Exhibit Columbus

“Inside Out,” an exhibition by Sam Fox School faculty Chandler Ahrens, Constance Vale, and Kelley Van Dyck Murphy, is featured in the 2025 Exhibit Columbus “Yes And” exhibition in Indiana.

The trio, who together operate the architecture practice AVV A, were selected from among sixty applicants as Exhibit Columbus’ University Design Research Fellows, along with five other teams. Their fellowship included partnering with the Columbus Area Visitors Center. Approximately 20 WashU architecture students assisted the faculty in creating the work over the summer.

Drawing inspiration from Alexander Girard’s dollhouse next to the famous conversation pit at the Miller House and Garden — designed by Eero Saarinen ten years before the completion of the iconic Gateway Arch in St. Louis — the multistory installation flips Columbus’ architecture “inside out” to reveal more than a dozen interior spaces. Dolls designed by youth who participated in the school’s summer Alberti Program animate the interiors, while a surrounding set of platforms allows visitors to climb and view the upper levels. By revealing the city’s hidden interiors, the piece invites visitors to weave their own stories of Columbus’ architectural legacy.

Vale shared that the project brings together the expertise of their practice: Van Dyck Murphy’s design research in textiles and ornaments as cultural narratives; Ahrens’ knowledge in digital fabrication, interface design, and interactive technologies; and her own focus on miniature immersive environments.

The exhibition features 13 outdoor installations and is on view in Columbus through November 30, 2025.

Exhibit Columbus is a program of the Landmark Columbus Foundation and an exploration of community, architecture, art, and design that activates the modern legacy of Columbus, Indiana. It creates a two-year cycle of programming that uses the context of Columbus to convene conversations around innovative ideas and then commissions site-responsive installations to create a free, public exhibition that demonstrates the power of art and architecture to make cities better places to live for everyone.