Wednesday, 13 March 2013

Quiet Room Project

Last November together with three of my friends we took part in a competition organised by University of the Arts London to design an interior for the multi-purpose Quiet Spaces being developed across CCW. It was a corroboration project between MA Interior and Spatial Design and MA Textile Design students, therefore each team had at least one Textile student. I was a good opportunity to learn one from another. 

The idea was to design quiet rooms / spaces that can be used  for individual prayer and reflection, meditation, contemplation or simply being quiet. Important aspect was to create neutral “smart” spaces which can be used by people for those purposes. In our mind spaces like this should have a sense of tranquillity, peace and safety. They way to achieve this is to use suitable materials, textiles and soft furnishings as well as adjustable lighting to create a calm and relaxing environment. 

Because the space may be used by students from different faith backgrounds or denominations at the same time space should be non-denominational, with no one religious group represented through iconography or visible artefacts. Main idea of the design is comfort, simplicity and functionality.

Design should take into account a way to create a sense of privacy that is why we decided to design a sign to be put outside of the rooms. Not only to let know if it is vacant or occupied (with the use of the slide) but also to mark the space and emphasize the use it will have.


From about 10 teams that took part in the competition our won. What made our design very different from all the other amazing ideas was that we took an individual approach to each of the sites. Both of the spaces are very different and have their own identity which we tried to emphasize in our design.

As a winning team we were invited to take part in realising the project. Now, few months after the final drawings are ready and in just 2 weeks the work will finally start. Very excited about that! 


I will share the design for each of the sites in following posts.

More info: http://www.arts.ac.uk/diversity/guidanceandotherresources/religiousliteracy/quietspaces/

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