HOME PROFILE PROJECTS CONTACT
|
|
Overview:
A series of interventions across five academic rooms on Northeastern's campus strive to remake typical classroom spaces into site specific art studios. The rebranding of these rooms is meant to provide a temporary space for students in the Visual Arts Department who currently have no permanent dedicated workspace on campus. The growing student numbers, in a highly coveted department only increases the need to materialize a space for this diverse group of students. Student interests include painting, drawing, graphic design, animation and general art require a variety of interventions that specifically address the various mediums students are utilizing. First and foremost, there is a need for flexibility within each individual room for a variety of users and uses.
Intervention:
A systematic design approach provided flexibility for all the rooms. A series of movable walls, both solid and perforated, coincide dimensionally with the development of the new furniture including tables and storage units. Three elements organize this systematic approach: a 40” table, a 40” portable wall and a 40” flat file and storage unit. Each of these units is interchangeable. Material similarities also tie these elements together. The table and flat file system are constructed using birch veneer plywood with exposed edges and industrial casters and legs. The movable partition wall frames are constructed of welded steel. The frames are clad in either perforated steel or sheetrock. It provides privacy and a temporary working space for the students while retaining an appropriate level of transparency to allow visual continuities within the studio spaces.
A second room, needing to function as a figure and object drawing room, art room and classroom, utilizes a series of moveable furniture pieces that can be interchanged with ease due to the implementation of flooring graphics including diagrams and text. These permanent directions adhered to the floor allow for flexibility within a complicated furniture system which include drawing palette tables, drawing horses, easels, still life object table, figure drawing stand, and a teaching table. Similar flooring graphics have been utilized in two additional rooms to provide direction between a typical classroom set up and the studio 'review' set up that combines tables on one side and the portable partitions into the middle of the room.