The clients’ desire was for a space designed with regard for the pragmatic needs of creating and storing art – but also inspirational, filled with light and views. On a larger property the program would likely have generated a freestanding structure. But on this relatively tight site the project came to be conceived as both an art pavilion (separate in many senses from the existing house) and also a central organizing space into which the original house opens – like an interior courtyard.

One wall in the studio became a dense storage and display structure with moveable pin-up boards serving as oversized doors for flexible shelving behind. The wall of the master bedroom became a screen wall to the studio space below – with lath and shelving for art books filling the cavities in the exposed structural framing. This library wall is accessed from a steel and maple catwalk, which also provides another vantage point from which to experience the studio (as well as a pirate’s crow’s nest or puppet theater for visiting grandchildren.