The IKEA challenge
The CultureLounge: Sizing up the room specs, spots for the Shelby Hodge statue &kissing booth
Our original, unedited, uncut plan. Now available on DVD HD.Art by Steven Thomson and Caroline Gallay
We've moved past the idea of bunk beds to a more mature ...Photo by Anthony Rathbun
Kissing Booth addition.
We're one week into our design challenge of decking out a lovely lounge for CultureMap with furniture from IKEA Houston and our brilliant ideas, and our brainstorming prowess has resulted in a fountain of fab concepts. And speaking of fountains — yes, we did pencil in a prosecco fountain, and no, we've already nixed the idea because we couldn't find diet bubbly at the midtown Spec's.
The lounge presents a variety of design difficulties ... er, opportunities for creativity. Because of its unusually long layout (it's 15 feet by 27 feet), we need to make efficient use of a narrow rectangle that will create a sense of comfort rather than feel like an evacuated hallway. What's more, the floor plan is punctuated with two sets of double doors — one leading to the kitchen, and one to the great outdoors.
Tragically, we don't have an office baby to suspend from said doors in a Johnny Jump Up, which has dimmed their appeal somewhat. There are also doors to a bathroom and a corridor to the head-honcho offices. (We petitioned to convert the latter space into a Muslim cultural center in protest of the protests in New York City over the Ground Zero mosque, but as with much we do, it was negged).
The many doorways make for nice flow, but leave little room for actual furniture.
What initially seemed like the one insurmountable flaw in the layout — an indented crevice on the lower part of the room — has presented itself as the perfect nook for a hammock and wet bar. Because the lounge is generous in square footage (405, to be exact), we're accounting for four more wet bars in the room, allowing for a comfortable 1:3 bar-to-employee ratio.
As two focal points, we're considering an inflatable kiddie pool (made of non-rainforest rubber) and a David Addickes-crafted statue of editor-at-large Shelby Hodge. Think of the juxtaposition as a perfect yin and yang.
Other anticipated highlights include a Zaha Hadid-designed kissing booth and an after-hours contraption we've simply dubbed, "The Swing."
We've also been looking at a couple of couches from IKEA.
Coming up Thursday: Our officemates react to our grand plans.
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Photo by Leonid Furmansky