A design process from A to Z

Laura
Feb 3, 2015
2 min read

It all began when we met Anatea at her home where she told us about the project: The creation of a shop for beautiful things with a workshop and gallery area.

The state of the space: no floor, no paint, no plumbing, no electricity...an empty shell.

Anatea had a team to do the renovation and dealt with the different workers. Marcelle&Jane was to focus on the design.

This project reminded us of the cabinet of curiosities and wonders concept, so we followed our inspiration to create a space where science and art, ancient and modern, reality and fiction come together, a space that would juxtapose historical periods and categories of objects to create an eccentric map of curiosities in its many senses.

We had to work fast and quickly presented a general layout plan.

First problem to solve: Anatea wanted a separate place for workshops. She thought about dividing the space into two seperate rooms. The whole shop measures only about 60 m2 so we didn't want to divide it and proposed a more modular solution to keep the space open and connected.

From the beginning, we knew that a dark blue space would be stunning for her shop. It creates a very alive and precious area that perfectly fits with the cabinet of curiosities concept. We also knew that it would give the ideal background for artists' work and other items she would present to her clients. We quickly chose floor tiles and a dark blue colour.

Within a week, plans were done (construction, plumbing, electricity and floor). We also showed Anatea some basic 3D mock-ups that would help her understand volumes of the space and how we will play with them.

Our first proposals were too colorful for our client.

We kept the dark blue but replaced the planned coral and yellow with a blue grey which went well with the wood.

With our detailed layout plan in mind, we designed a lot of purpose-built furniture for the space but ultimately had to cancel them as they did not fit within Anatea's budget.

Meanwhile, the electricity, plumbing and floor were laid. We decided with Anatea's agreement which kind of furniture will dress the shop. This was a quite tricky step as we had no final list of items or quantities to be sold in the shop.

Once the furniture arrived in the shop, we helped put together different items to make sure it was done properly. We spent more than two days with Anatea to show her how to present her items in a creative way.