A writing Studio for a Sociologist…
Two small bedrooms in a turn of the century house were joined to make one 300 square footwriting studio.
The owner, a sociologist tends to keep files, piles really, of newspaper and magazine articles as the basis for the research that underpins his books. The piles had been set on open book shelves and were hard to organize or keep track of. Finding a better solution for this method of file storage was one of the generating goals of the project.
We started by thinking about the piles of the paper as bundles of ideas. We wanted to find a way to cleanly organize the paper but we remained interested in the particular spatial character of the habit. We wanted to find a way to keep something of the original presence of the clippings and settled on translucent plastic as the expressive material.
The project includes rolling file cabinets with hanging file space on the top and an open shelf for clippings on the bottom. There is a clear plastic bottom to the upper section so that loose papers can be piled there as well. When working on a particular project the cabinet that contains its files can be rolled over to the desk where the work is being done.
The file cabinets nest under a continuous plastic window shelf that runs the length of the newly joined rooms. At each of the two existing windows, box-like writing desks float above the shelf and link the furniture to the light. Because nothing in the room quite touches, light reflects in and around the gaps and enlivens the interconnections.
In the center of the room is the principle writing desk, an eleven foot long rectangular prism. The internal structure of white painted particle board is revealed at the discontinuities in the skin and, in an out of focus way can be seen through the translucent skin. The object has characteristics that remind us of a box kite.
On the largest open wall, a seven foot square unprimed canvas hangs. It is an object of imagination and serves as a large pinup wall to help in the process of organizing research.
Overhead, a light fixture made of the same plastic material provides general illumination.
Principle materials:
½” Thick Translucent Plastic: 40% Recycled Content Particle Board: Formaldehyde Free MDF Maple flooring: Existing and Harvested and Reinstalled. Painted plaster Stainless steel.
