We are honoured to be IxDA finalists for this year with our work on the Storsjöodjurscenter. By January 2014 you can all vote for us to win the prestigious IxDA awards.

In 2012 we built Storsjöodjurscenter in Jämtland, Sweden. It is a monster research laboratory for the legendary Storsjöodjur (The un-animal of the Great Lake). The local entrepreneurs invited Unsworn Industries to design and produce a full-fledged Monster Centre that could attract visitors and monster-researchers of all ages, with varying abilities, knowledge and opinions.

We have designed every detail of the centre to make the visitors feel like Monster Researchers working in their own research lab. The visitors hang their coats next to diving gear, coffee is served in laboratory beakers, and staff keep an ever watchful eye on the Monster Surveillance Station. Visitors are invited to touch, interact with, and use everything that they find at the centre.

The centre is actively searching for the monster. The Surveillance Station presents the monster researchers with live, underwater video streams from the lake and easy access to archived footage. Should you see the monster, make sure to follow the instructions!

The Research Stations provide access to the monster researchers’ shared and annotated database of hundreds of articles, scientific facts, illustrated descriptions of animals, cryptozoological creatures, and more than 200 documented observations of the monster from the last 150 years.

The challenges to design a research centre for a cryptozoological creature are vast and plenty. That is why we think we should win! We have seriously taken all stakeholders opinions to heart and tried to create a centre that is respectful to both believers and sceptics. The scientific approach made this possible, and we ourselves had to become experts of evolutionary theories, dinosaurs and marine biology.

Vote for us!

Here is our competition.

Here are some images from the process, building the center with our collaborators from architects Testbedstudio and Terje Östling, Super Artist.