Creating a Study Room

"The secret to creativity is knowing how to hide your sources."

Albert Einstein

Let's start with "appropriation", after all, as Thom Mayne explained to some UCLA students (i think) design is mimetic.

If you google "design study room" the image results are, let's face it, banal rubbish.

The use of the term "design" when googling usually returns what is commonly referred to in designer circles as "shit!".

I usually get around this by including the terms poliform, Molenti & C, cappellini or going straight to a design blog like dezeen and using there search or going to e-interiors.net, browsing through the brands (such as Unifor), googling them, going directly to their site and downloading PDFs of their catalogues.

Unfortunately none of these tips have worked this time.

Ok, here's what I want:

The Table

Ok, this is what I want (well, not really, I can't find the image from the catalogue I like online):

While we are waiting for thousands of dollars to magically appear

in my wallet I've got a teak veneer door (from bunnings, shame) resting on couple of trestle legs (from ikea, more shame) and it looks a damn site better than most of the shit tables I've seen for a few reasons:

• the warmth of the timber speaks for itself
• it's big, 2.1/2.4 metres which means it can sit six people
• it's casual, there's not a hint of ponce about it, it says to people "I'm too busy entertaining my millions of friends to worry about getting a table I won't let you put your drink on because you might leave a stain"
• Sweety Petey came up with the idea and he's knows much more than you do about what looks good.

I've left it untreated so it would wear quickly, we all know how us white guys lurv vintage

Anyway, dissecting these (and other) images, there are a couple of things in common that can be followed:

• Clustering items (such as tea lights, bowls, books, candle holders, vases, serving platter) one third the way along the table, leaving the rest of the table free. I think this is similar to the principle of white space in graphic design
• ubiquitous use of a Floor Lamp (a must have)

Chairs

At the risk of letting you all in a on a secret, ensuring all the good stuff gets bought before I get a chance to see it, I got exactly the chairs I wanted from the KE-ZU clearance site and a dedece sale.

However these were dining chairs and since we are talking study chairs you can't go past either the eames aluminium group chairs or soft pad chairs.

It is very popular amongst architects to condemn the purchase of reproductions, statements such as "just buy the original" or "wait till you can buy the original" are common. It is also very popular to pay young architects next to nothing, guaranteeing they will never be able to afford these chairs. Buying a reproduction does not preclude buying an original, buying a reproduction and an original are not mutually exclusive and at the end of the day... meh...

I'd like to buy a soft pad repo from either Milan Direct or Matt Blatt.

The Computer

The problem:

Ok, the best way to ruin the study table is to put a PC on it, I've bought my fiance an iMac principally to solve this problem, but until it is fully operational (i.e has working copies of Autodesk 3ds Max 2010, AutoCAD Architecture, Revit and Vray) I'm stuck with my IBM Thinkpad.

Don't get me wrong I'm happy with the ThinkPad vintage charm, it looks great on the lap when sitting on the couch (I really must blog about my $35 couch) but once you plug in a keyboard, mouse, monitor, external harddrive (which is necessary for architectural software) you're fecked.

There's really only one way to layout a notebook and monitor:

Unfortunately, PC manufacturers just don't fecking get it. I'd go so far as to say that there is no such thing as an aesthetically pleasing PC. So this is the best I could come up with:

• Make sure you extend your desktop over the notebook screen and monitor
• Use a wireless keyboard and mouse (there are no good looking ones so don't bother asking)
• Purchase a few Cable Turtle Power Cables

As for the placement of the PC on the table, I'm looking for suggestions... please help...

And finally, the finished product:

Update: If anyone knows a way to keep handbags and cardigans off chairs please comment. I've seen two good ideas:

• a pouf for the bag

(Photo by Poliform)

• a coatstand

(Photo by KE-ZU)