Library: Residential Design II: Firehouse (Artists' co-housing) Project

Project

Project Description:

The famous American artist, Andy Warhol, had his first studio in a firehouse located at 159 East 87th Street. He acquired this space in 1962 and produced many of his iconic works here, including his “Disaster” paintings. He occupied the space for close to two years, before moving to a larger facility on East 47th Street where he worked on his Campbell soup prints and his Brillo boxes.

The large space has stayed in the art world’s hands over the years and was recently bought by a famous artist. He/ she wants to live and work in the Firehouse most of the year, but travels extensively as well.

To give back to the art world, that has been so good to him/ her, the artist decided to open the large space to 2 or three developing artists at a time. They will be able to apply to live in the space for a few months, doing studio work there in this coveted central location.

The artist envisions this space working as a kind of artistic “accelerator”, similar to the concept seen in the tech world. Individuals come in, have a chance to live and work with other people while developing an individual or combined project. The arrangement is for a defined period of time and then they move on.

The artist has seen the movies -”Ghost Busters” and “The Princess Diaries”- where a firehouse had been adapted for general residential and other use. He/ she remembered how great the interior had looked and how much fun the people had living there.

They have hired you to do the Interior Design for this space, completely furnish it and adapt it for use by many artists.

This Firehouse needs to be completely gutted and renovated. It had formerly been used by Wildenstein and Co. art dealership to store and showcase art.

Concerns linger about how to handle the large opening where the fire trucks went in and out, and whether to reinstall the fire pole.

Program:

The space is to be ADA compliant, with a main floor accessible washroom and an adaptable kitchen. The Firehouse will have an elevator and at least one ADA accessible bathroom/ bedroom/ closet on the second floor.

An accessible entrance with generous closet

Main floor ADA compliant bathroom
Second main floor entrance with clean up/ laundry space with full lockers/ storage for artist’s equipment, coats, boots
Large general use adaptable kitchen with minimally three breakfast stools
Dining space for six comfortably, eight to ten tight near the kitchen
Multi-functional room for meeting, relaxing, entertaining and watching movies on either floor
Studio space for the three to four artists that can be used for painting, sculpture, mixed media, performance art, video art with appropriate lighting. Shelving, storage built in the space with sinks. Screens for media art.
ADA compliant elevator
A master bedroom/ closet, attached bath, for the owner with small work area
A handicapped accessible bedroom/ closet/ attached bath
Separate bedroom spaces for two artists. May have attached or shared baths.
Adaptable Space for guests with storage for overnight luggage and drawers
General use terrace which may also showcase art. Could be used by a lighting artist

Recommended Resources

Journal of Interior Design online:

A search for collaborative work space brought up 95 results, with this interesting article at the top of the list:

Augustin, S. (2014), Designing for Collaboration and Collaborating for Design. Journal of Interior Design, 39: ix–xviii. doi:10.1111/joid.12020

EBSCO articles:

A combined search for artist studio and "interior design" (with quotes) had 434 results, including this:

Corcoran, Heather. "Make Room for Creativity: These Studios Are Works of Art in Their Own Right." Interior Design, vol. 88, no. 10, Aug. 2017, pp. 192-209. EBSCOhost, https://nysid.idm.oclc.org/login?url=https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=bvh&AN=771965&site=ehost-live.