Calgary, Alberta, Canada | Type: Commercial | Size: 3600 sf | Year: 2023
This project was the second interior installment for ATTAbotics, a Calgary-based robotic supply-chain innovator and manufacturer. Our scope was modest, namely the interior design of approximately 3,600 sf of ‘front-of-house’ office space within their primary manufacturing facility. Central to our conceptual approach was two key themes: use of everyday, off-the-shelf industrial materials (i.e., polyester rope) and secondly, the careful choreography of movement/transition throughout the space.
While consideration of materiality, texture and tectonics is sometimes relegated as an epilogue within the design process, currently in our office we’re exploring the notion of ‘architecture in reverse’, which entails – among other things – researching both the poetic and technical properties of a given material to help inform or drive the critical narrative of our work. With this project, we continued our on-going research into the tensile, funicular qualities of rope, deploying it in such a way that – via it’s interaction with a parametrically developed track/connection system – produces not only an innovative tectonic (i.e., reminiscent of the stitching used in textiles) but also a diaphanous, porous method of demarking space. The catenary, parabolic forms created not only engender a soft, tactile sensuality to office space but also produce spectacle by way creating a moiré effect when one moves in and around the playful forms.
Secondly, with respect to procession or movement within the space, we strayed away from the typical typological response, namely transcribing strict boundary/separation in favour of transparency/convergence (both physically and phenomenologically) in an effort to help promote ATTAbotics’ preference towards horizontality and cross-pollination amongst its separate groups.