Issue link: http://digital.copcomm.com/i/1043753
5 6 P E R S P E C T I V E | N O V E M B E R / D E C E M B E R 2 0 1 8 Manhattan in a blaze of sunlight. The corridor was like a diving board perched above a sea of buildings. I placed my toes and forehead against the glass and looked at the streets below." After reading the novel, this long hallway was the first thing I sketched. I drew a long spine connecting the elevator lobby and reception to Kitty's office. It was all good, but I knew we would never be able to bring Plum to the edge of anything because the set was on the stage floor and a patch of lawn lay outside this magical window. There would be no looking down. But I still loved the idea of the hallway as a diving board, so we re-envisioned it as a long suspended ceiling piece five-inches in depth projecting eight- feet into the lobby, hovering over a fuschia-colored runner. The hallway walls would be rift cut white oak paneling washed by recessed lights on both sides, allowing the ceiling to float between the walls. The fuschia runner was set into the wood flooring as it came into the lobby at the same angle as the ceiling piece above. Razor-sharp slits in the ceiling piece filled with white plexiglass became a lighting feature giving the whole ensemble the feeling of a high-fashion runway. The Daisy Chain offices filled one of our stages entirely, leaving a second stage for three sets, the Beauty Closet, Plum's apartment and the basement of Calliope House. In both the novel and the televisions scripts, the Beauty Closet is depicted as being in the basement of Austen Media. From a design standpoint, the idea of a basement closet filled with product was not appealing, requiring some thought and re-interpretation. Typically, the basement of any skyscraper is designated either for parking or mechanical equipment such as boilers and chillers—the building's sausage which is often hidden from public view. Another way to look at it, however, is some of the most beautiful forms in the history of architecture were built for utilitarian purposes such as factories, dams and stadiums. For inspiration, I looked at reinforced concrete structures by Pier Luigi Nervi, such as his 1940s aircraft hangars in Orvieto, Italy, his Olympic stadium Palazzetto dello Sport in Rome, as well as structural engineer Felix Candela's thin shell cast-in-place concrete structures. In my mind, the architecture of the Beauty Closet had to convey two things once. Visually it had to express the A A. BEAUTY CLOSET PLANS AND ELEVATIONS. DRAWN BY JOSH SMITH IN VECTORWORKS AND SKETCHUP. B. BEAUTY CLOSET UNDER CONSTRUCTION ON STAGE IN GLENDALE, QUEENS, NY. FIVE BY TEN FOOT SHEETS OF TWINWALL POLYCARBONATE BACKED WITH PAPER DIFFUSION GAVE THE V'S A DISTINCT SILHOUETTE ON CAMERA.