The new Junior Common room was relocating to a new space. The room was being used for functions and large scale meetings, so had lots of much needed space, but felt austere and uninviting.
The college needed to retain a dual purpose for the room – common room during term and function room out of term. So all the furnishings needed to be flexible in use and easy to move into storage out of term time.
As usual, the term time requirements were fun, lively, and durable. In addition the room needed to feel complete once all the furniture had been removed. So we needed to consider the walls and window treatments, as that would be the main feature when using the room for an event.
” We are all delighted with room, and suddenly it is very busy in there! “
Accommodation Manager, Oxford
It is always critical that our designs result in a space that is fit for purpose. In this case, two purposes! We needed to make the space inviting and fun for the students during term time. The room did not seem to be very popular, and with low usage, so we needed to address that. The out of term use would be for conferences and weddings. It was therefore crucial that the room still looked complete and inviting with the furniture removed.
Our solution was to introduce a faux silk wallpaper and matching blinds. This gave the room colour, warmth and texture. We added upholstered seating on the wooden benches. This had the effect of bringing more colour and softness to the room. This base colour then formed the foil for the rest of the ‘term time’ scheme.
We then found a wonderful multicoloured weave fabric. We used this to draw the co-ordinating palette of colours together. As always, fabrics have to be highly durable so they will stand the test of time!
