Last week, after spending six hours huddled over an archive file at the store in Blythe house, I emerged into a surprisingly dark and wet London (it had been relatively bright and breezy when I arrived for my archive appointment). I don’t often find myself in Kensington and had never visited the Design Museum before, but I’d heard good things about the Home Futures exhibition and knew I had 50% off entry with my student art pass so thought I’d head there to shelter from the rain before my train back to Coventry.

Greeted with the declarations “If you’re unsure of what you can and can’t touch, please just ask an exhibition assistant” and “You’re welcome to enter the hole in the wall, just take your shoes off first please.”, I was instantly made aware of the haptic and interactive nature of this exhibition, and curious to find out more. With over 200 interdisciplinary objects from the worlds of art, design, architecture, film and ephemera, presented across five themed rooms connected by a sprawling corridor, there is plenty to entertain the senses. The dream-like passages, which include a bed and a garden area were designed by New York based architects SO-IL and make for a unique and intuitive-feeling exhibition space.

Many of the objects in the exhibition use sound, moving image and changing light. The overall feel is thus that of a sci-fi imagining of the future (think of the landscape of the original Blade Runner or The Fifth Element). Some, shorter sequence, sound pieces repeat themselves over and over again as you move through the space, chanting at you. The most visceral memory I’ve kept of this is Alexa’s helpful robot voice interacting with the sing-song tones of a housewife proclaiming her love for her automatic vacuum cleaner. Meanwhile some of the longer film pieces lure you in to sit and linger for a while – there’s a variety of kitsch seating provided for this from a Dali-esque lip sofa, to some seriously luxurious iridescent beanbags, to the aforementioned hole in the wall which was filled with pillows and changed colour in pulsing intervals.

Here are some of my favourite objects from the show’s many treasures:

This series of imagined internet routers of the future created by designers from Google’s OnHub Makers project – I loved the idea of a big furry WiFi beast in the corner of a living room.

The 1971 Pratone chair designed by Giorgio Ceretti, Piero Derossi and Riccardo Rosso, which you could sink right into, as demonstrated by the charming photograph of it being used by a group of children with bowl haircuts displayed behind it.

Just what is it that makes today’s homes so different, so appealing? the 1956 collage by Richard Hamilton. I studied this image in the first term of my art history degree back in 2010 – so many of those big seminal works seem much smaller and more understated when you see them in person don’t they?

Kiki van Eijk’s 2018 textile series Software. Woven contemporary still life scenes which incorporate modern technology with everyday domesticity. These were so beautifully lit by that magical colour-changing hole in the wall!

And finally, a mock-up Ikea catalogue of the future, which visitors were allowed to take away with them. I laughed to myself on the train home browsing through such items as a living moss carpet and bedding that can adjust to your preferred “pillow fluff-factor”.

This was truly a delight of an exhibition. My only regret was that I had to leave the gallery at closing time, without enough time to finish watching the enthralling film of a Danish man’s discovery that his Airbnb guests had been wearing his wife’s underwear and posting images of themselves in it on Instagram with the hashtag “weird sex”.