Wednesday, September 15, 2010

Cabinetry: the “CUBE”

The main idea in our design was to create as open and flexible space as possible. With exposed concrete ceiling and the industrial concrete floor the apartment has a character of a loft although it really isn’t one. The use of industrial type construction plywood throughout the apartment also in some way contributes to that feel.
The image below shows where we used the plywood. All of the cabinets are completely built out of it as well as the ceiling above the kitchen and the operable wall partition panels.


In the center we placed a volume that we’ve called the “CUBE”. To allow maximum, flexible use of the space we made the main living area expandable on to the adjacent guest bedroom. The “CUBE” in the center is the object where we can hide the operable partition, but also a foldaway Murphy-type bed, and locate 3 various size closets. We liked the idea of a machine-like transformation of the object and the space in the same time.
Another image below shows the cube closed and open.




Bedrooms are spaces that are rarely used during the day, especially a second guest bedroom, therefore it seemed natural to make that space usable whenever needed for other functions, including entertaining a large number of guest.

We had to remove some of the previous walls to make room for the new framing that would adapt to the foldaway bed. We have routed new electrical wiring for lighting and power and insulated the walls with recycled acoustical insulation wool from the demolition.


Building the closet was a little tricky as we decided to miter all the corners to maintain full surfaces with the brown film finish of the plywood. The bed closet also includes hidden light cove.


 

The bed we used is a very high quality product that we found in the Häfele catalogue that offers a huge selection of furniture fittings, and architectural ironmongery. It definitely wasn’t cheap but we were very satisfied with the product. The full “french bed” set we got has 2 powerful gas pistons that allow opening and closing with virtually no effort, it includes adjustable bed frame with back lift and other trinkets.
Installation of the bed itself was quite easy as it needs just a few heavy duty bolts and little adjustment.The front panel is just hung on provided hooks and secured with a couple of screws.






Another piece of costly hardware was the system for the operable partition. We wanted the wall too have one surface so it required a setup with a single track that also allows the panels to be parked parallel. The track has to branch out to two tracks in the pocket to do that. The system we found is by a Swiss company HAWA. We saw it the first time at the Zurich airport where we usually stop on our travels. In the main concourse all the glass panels that enclose the shopping areas utilize this system.


After mounting the top track we build the frames of the panels out of regular unfinished plywood. There is also a small bottom track that is inset in the concrete floor. It is only there for stability of the panels. We installed the hardware in the frames and assembled the system to test it out. It worked fine except some resistance when moving over the curved piece of the track. That required additional adjustment.




What was left was the finishing of the panels. We used 6mm plywood sheets. First we glued one side to the frame.



Then we glued diagonal bracing to prevent warping of the panels. We used strips cut from a couple of masonite boards that we got for free from a wholesale warehouse where we bought most of our building materials. They had been used as display boards and were going to be thrown out.


Then we insulated the panels with mostly recycled wool from demolition.


At the end we glued the top panel. There are many things to consider when doing this on your own. The most important is the choice of glue. The one we used was a little too fast and required really quick application. For a panel that is almost 3m long is not very practical. You also have to really make sure the surface you are working on is really flat. Our floor although done fairly well on a stretch of 3 meters can have some variations that the door will replicate. Luckily for us they were unnoticeable.

1 comment:

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