Showroom and Apartments — Architect Earthmakers

Architect Earthmakers / Work / 03

03Commercial

A showroom lined with open display shelving and glazed along its whole front, with apartment rooms finished in the same pale stone and timber.

Scroll

Sheet

03 / 09

Typology

Commercial

Status

—

Media

Visualisation

Showroom and ApartmentsCommercialArchitect EarthmakersShowroom and ApartmentsCommercialArchitect EarthmakersShowroom and ApartmentsCommercialArchitect EarthmakersShowroom and ApartmentsCommercialArchitect Earthmakers

A-01Record

The record

Showroom and Apartments

A-01.1What it has

01Full-height glazing to the street and to the garden
02Open display shelving to both walls of the showroom
03Track lighting run over the display walls
04A stone service counter with seating
05One continuous recessed light along the corridor
06Timber-framed windows to the garden in the apartments

The showroom takes the full width of the front. Display walls run down both sides, a stone counter closes one end, and the glazed elevation puts the whole room on view from the street. The rooms that follow are domestic and quieter — a corridor lit by one continuous line in the ceiling, and a living room and bedroom that both open onto the garden.

The showroom

The room is one length, and both of its long walls are given over to display: open shelving in pale timber and white, carried up above head height and lit by track spots run in front of it. Nothing is stacked on the floor, so the floor stays a single plane of pale stone from the door to the counter.

The front is glazed for its full height. From outside the shop reads as the shelving itself, lit, with the trees across the road standing in the glass.

The showroom looking towards the glazed front, with display shelving to both walls, a low bench and plants on the left, and the counter on the right. — PL. 01

The showroom from the far end: tall shelving stacked with product, a light timber display table in the middle of the floor, and a dark counter at the right. — PL. 02

Swipe02 plates

The counter

The counter is a dark stone block set against the light room, with two upholstered stools at it. It is placed where the glazing turns the corner, so whoever is behind it can see both the street and the length of the shop.

The service counter in dark stone with two upholstered stools, an open shelf unit behind it, and full-height glazing on two sides. — PL. 03Dark stone against a light room — the one heavy thing in it.

After dark

At dusk the shelving does the lighting. Each bay is lit from within, so the two long walls read as illuminated grids and the middle of the room is left comparatively dim — which is what keeps the eye on the goods rather than on the ceiling.

The showroom at dusk with the shelving lit from within, pendant lights over the counter, and the garden lit beyond the glazing. — PL. 04

The hall and the corridor

Away from the shop the same materials are used with almost nothing in them. The hall is left empty against one glazed wall, and the corridor is faced in plaster piers with a single recessed line of light run the length of the ceiling, which is the only thing drawing the eye to the door at the end.

An empty hall with white walls, downlights, a pale tiled floor and a large glazed wall onto the garden. — PL. 05

A long corridor with pale plaster piers down both sides, a recessed line of light along the ceiling, a stone floor, and a glazed door at the far end. — PL. 06

Swipe02 plates

The apartments

The rooms are furnished plainly and take their light from the garden. The living room is two sofas across a low timber table, with windows on two sides; the bedroom puts a sofa at the foot of the bed and a wide timber-framed window opposite it, so the garden is what you see first from either room.