This year the RCA’s Summer show combined various fields in an all-encompassing exhibition space that was both innovative and exciting to explore.

Designer Gerrard O’Carroll and curator Claire Catterall created an exceptionally large tent structure in Kensington Gardens – close to the site of the original Great Exhibition – where graduating students in design and applied arts showed their work. The main college galleries were home to painting, photography and printmaking departments.

A new approach was taken for the display of the work, as pieces from the various disciplines were shown alongside one another. This resulted in a common ground where the physical space weaved the various works throughout, and at the same time, encouraged viewers to reflect on the faded boundaries between the disciplines. The brilliant quality of the work unified the display, while the wide variation both in form and content of the different pieces was deeply stimulating.

This year there was a strong emphasis on environmental issues, as well as experimental new technologies. Alex Metcalf for example came up with a “treehugger” whose aim was to encourage people to engage with trees. His project developed from his fascination with trees and the fact that one can hear the sound of water inside the trunk, as it is being pulled up from the roots to the leaves through the xylem vessels. For this he invented a tree listening device, based on the same principle as the stethoscope, and projected the sound through headphones hanging from the tree branches. It is a rumbling sound, gentle but full of life.

Craig Morrison won the BSi Sustainability Award, 2007 with his plywood prototype vehicle design. His aim was to “raise automotive industry awareness that 'wood body panels' can have a positive environmental impact. I have created a car using sustainable materials and processes”. The outcome brought together good aesthetics, sustainability, and a design idea that could work for the general population in a future that requires environmental solutions with urgency.

It is hard to say whether it is the realization of the fuzzy boundaries between the various disciplines that has aided in more free experimentation by artists, or the other way around. In any case, the result is with no doubt showing exciting results.