This afternoon, the 16th of February, we are presenting basic design to members of the current Redux. The new home is situated at 1056 King Street. As a group, we have gone through another design charrette. During the charrette, we spent about ten minutes sketching out a series of ideas for each given concept. We spent another ten to fifteen minutes talking about the possibilities that had been drawn out, and worked to develop who was to work on what during the individual design phase of the process. Each member of Studio V was thus assigned to work on two of the five areas. Over the last few days, we have worked on simplified versions of the opportunities for signage, the reception desk, the bar niche, the stage, and gallery walls.
In the individual design process, I worked on trying to understand gallery walls. I further explored the opportunities given when one uses wider wall. The storage opportunities thus allow for one to store chairs, tables, and other gallery components within. Though they cannot be as easily stored as the thinner and canvas-style gallery walls, they help to further optimize storage space. I have found that a five and six-foot wide wall do not fit into the hallways going from the first, main gallery, to the hallway and back galleries of the new Redux center. Anything wider than approximately 32 inches would also have a hard time in receding back in the last gallery. It would also be difficult when being placed within the storage room that is across from the new dark room. However, the internal storage capacity lends itself to allowing for both chairs, as well as tables, to be placed within the frame of the walls. It would take approximately only two gallery walls, 12 feet deep and 32 inches wide, for a moderately sized event at Redux.
The second part of my individual design was the bar niche, an already framed section of the new Redux center that provides an opportunity for both a pull-out bar, as well as storage for events. I went more towards the idea of how one can create an extension from the niche, creating a room slightly smaller than the office used near the proposed area for the reception desk. The new room could help create a stronger transition between the public and private space between the gallery and the kitchen area used by the artists in residence and other staff. In essence, it is a room that could exist solely for events and storage for potential clients of the newly revamped Redux Contemporary Arts Center.
As they only stand as proposed solutions, the opportunities for other projects lies more so in what is desired by our client during the meeting at 2 P.M.