Seth McDowell Architect, pllc

The Subterranean Studio transformed a minimally finished suburban basement into a clean, modern studio and gallery.  Demolition removed a series of partition walls, all existing finishes, and an uninspiring acoustical ceiling tile ceiling.  The act opened the space up to the only source of natural light—the entrance door.  The design maximized this single source of daylight by expanding the door opening and glazing. 

At 7’-6” floor to ceiling height, the space is compressed in height.  Thus, the design strategy was to play with the ceiling profiles and depths to create spatial definition. Over the office space a custom accordion profile ceiling was creating to play with light and to break-up the expansive horizontal plane.  LED lighting is installed within coves in the ceiling to give the feeling of skylights within this subterranean space. 

Given the constraints with natural lighting, the design explores artificial lighting as a means to establish atmospheric conditions.  Lighting coves are created throughout a gallery alcove and studio, concealing the LED lights that wash the walls. Reveals are exploited as an architectural strategy to emphasize form with shadow lines, but also serve as electrical coves and hide the outlets within the gallery and studio. 

The subterranean studio is a study in transformation. It takes a ubiquitous suburban space, that is often overlooked or used for storage and transforms it into a contemporary workspace.  It highlights the potential latent in the spaces we typically perceive as inferior.