PRINTMAKER'S LIVE/WORK SPACE

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The printmaker’s live work studio program included two bedrooms and bathrooms, kitchen and living areas, and a printmaking studio with storage, gallery, office, library and visitor reception foyer. The program requirements were analyzed to identify spaces that needed privacy and those with functions that could be overlapped and doubled together.

The design redefines familiar domestic and studio elements for work/live conditions. A guest bathroom is sized to accommodate the studio rinse room. Natural citrus-based solvents are used for cleaning printing inks, making the daily cleaning process more pleasant and safer for the environment. A filtered, integral exhaust system installed removes air born paint particles from the atmosphere.

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The printmaker’s storage requirements were based on the specific sizes of screen equipment and finished artworks, which travel on loan to museums. The design takes advantage of the dimensional specificity of the extensive storage needs to create a storage wall between the studio and living areas. The floating volumes of this inside out closet, made from shop built plywood boxes assembled on site, are both direct reflections of pragmatic necessity and mysterious sculptural volumes that transcends function. The storage wall is finished with an iridescent plaster surface that changes color according to one’s position. The printmaker’s artwork in storage become unconscious ornament, abstracted as shadow on the wall’s glass panels-translucent at night and reflective by day. By allowing the volume of one set of program needs to imprint itself on another, the storage wall produces a changeable and complementary boundary between living and working spaces.

Date: 2005
Status: Completed
Client: Private Ownership
Location: Boston, MA
Design Team:
Frano Violich, FAIA; Managing Principal
Sheila Kennedy, FAIA; Principal Consulting on Design
Veit Kugel Dipl Ing, Eric Bunge AIA, Luis Boza
Architect: Kennedy & Violich Architecture, Ltd
MEPFP Engineer: Ibrahim & Ibrahim Engineers
Photographer: Bruce Martin