Ark/8 — Installation Model

Massing study for the Auda art forum at Ark/8, 115 S La Brea. Modelled at 1 unit = 1 foot.

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1 – 5

overviews — entrance, plan, room, wall, backdrop

6 – 9

standing in the room at eye level — door, among the suspended panels, on stage, at the column line

0

back to the entrance view

,  .

fewer or more people — the same four steps as the Crowd row

[  ]

step through the placements — the same six buttons as the Work row

H

fold the readout panel away and back — or tap the Ark/8 bar itself. Folded, the bar still reads the current work, stock, PA and crowd, and every key below still works

R

cycle the stock through stage, east, NE and front — the Stock row

S

cycle the PA through none, A, B, C — the PA row

B W F P C L G

toggle a layer on or off

?

open and close this panel

Where the work lives

The set is landscape and portrait together, so each placement is a different way of handling exactly that. A, B and C spread the large work along the wall; D and E keep all four together behind the stage; F drops the large work altogether. Switch from the Work row or with [ and ]; send one on its own by adding ?work=f to the link.

A – E

twenty pieces each — four large (two 4′×8′ upright, two 8′×4′ on their side) and sixteen at 24×36 / 36×24, in a different mix of orientations every time. Nothing touches: the closest two frames in any placement are 3″ apart

A

align the centres. An upright anchoring each end, the two 8′×4′ stacked at the middle, the sixteen in two rows between. The eye tracks the centre line rather than the frame edges, so mixed formats sit together without any looking dropped

B

into the room. The four large stay on the wall on one bottom line at 1′5″, two upright and two on their side. The sixteen leave the wall entirely and hang on their own drops down the middle of the room — the west side becomes a run you walk rather than a wall you face

C

abandon alignment. The large pieces sit at four heights and two orientations; the sixteen fill the pockets around them. Every position placed rather than computed — which is the point. The only one of the five that takes a late addition without the wall being re-set

D

the block behind the stage. All four large works together as one 16′10″ × 8′5″ backdrop for the panel, the sixteen in two rows flanking it. The strongest of the five for photographs taken from the floor, because the stage and the largest work are one picture rather than two

E

the block, and the sixteen suspended. The same backdrop, with the sixteen off the wall and hanging in the room. The wall carries the scale, the room carries the sequence, and the work is something you walk through on the way to the stage

F

one line, no large work. Eighteen 24×36 upright, one format at one height straight across the back wall — the plainest hang there is, and the only one that reads as a sequence you walk rather than a composition you stand back from. 18 is the count the width allows, not the wall: A’s display is 42′1″ and the brief was not to exceed it, which 18 does with 0.6″ to spare. The set is sixteen — at sixteen the line is 37′4″ and there is room for two more. The five pieces behind the panel are its backdrop rather than work anybody stands in front of, though with the riser gone a seated head only reaches the bottom 2″ of them

How the spacing was set

Not from what the run divided into — every placement is spaced to the same two numbers.

3″ between frames

tighter and a group crowds; past about 4″ the works stop talking to each other and read as separate objects rather than one hang

57″ centre line

the museum standard, applied to the centre of the grouping rather than to each frame — the part that usually gets misapplied. Individual pieces sit above and below it

the exception

anything behind the panel is a backdrop, not a viewing wall, and is raised so its bottom reads over the seated group in front of it. Striking the riser dropped six heads by a foot, so this now costs less than it did

Where the stock stands

Four dressings, cycled from the Stock row or with R, or sent as ?stock=ne. All four carry within a few feet of the same 86′ of rail, so what changes is the footprint and not how much clothing is out.

Stage

the shop as it trades — five runs down the west side, the sixth struck to clear the bar corner for service. Work and stock share the west half. The only dressing carrying less rail (67′6″), and the bar corner is why

East

the west side struck and the stock rebuilt on the east half. The stage end becomes one uninterrupted room — wall, work, panel — and the retail is something you pass on the way in from La Brea rather than something you stand in the middle of. The bar corner needs no clearing over there, so that sixth run comes back

NE

the same six runs folded into the north-east quarter — half the footprint of the others. The aisles close from 5′5″ to 4′7″, still walkable but tight, and the whole north-east corner reads as a shop inside the room. Whether that is the point or the problem depends on whether the night wants the retail present or parked

Front

the south half, three runs each side of the south U, facing the storefront. Stock is the first thing you meet off La Brea and the entire back half of the room is clear — the longest uninterrupted approach to the stage of the four. The west group is 17′ rather than 18′6″ because the DJ counter takes that corner

The PA

Three placements, from the PA row or with S, or as ?pa=b. Same boxes throughout — a 12″ two-way top and a single-18 sub — so the comparison is about where they go. Nothing is flown — there is no rigging, so every box is on a tripod or on the floor and the only variable is where the stands go. Cable is drawn the way it gets run: orthogonal, hugging the wall, never diagonally across open floor, and the footages in the readout are measured off those lines rather than asserted.

A

flanking the panel. Two stacks just outboard of the seating — sub on the floor, pole out of the sub, top at 7′7″. One trip, no separate stands, the least cable. But they stand 7′ off the west wall inside the width of the hang, so from anywhere but dead centre they cover the outer edge of the largest work. Drawn because it is what the room defaults to if nobody decides otherwise

B

outboard, wide. Tops on 7′7″ poles well out into the room, toed in 26° so the coverage crosses in front of the stage instead of being thrown down the wall. Nothing within 18′ of the work stands above 2′4″, so the whole hang reads clean from every seat. The cost is on the floor: two branches cross the walking route and need ramps or a taped line

C

four point, all on stands. B’s mains unchanged, plus a delay pair on tripods 10′ further into the room. The mains are identical to B’s on purpose, so the only thing being compared is whether the back half of a 65′ room needs its own pair or can be left to two boxes 40′ away. Four stands and four branches to tape, and the delays sit in the one north–south lane that is clear of rails in all four stock dressings

DJ booth to the panel: 31′ of run. Measured off the drawn route — down the back of the DJ counter, out to the west wall, north along it behind the panel, in to a distro on the floor at the panel’s south-east corner. With 3′ of dressing at each end and normal slack that wants about 40′, so order a 50′ cable and coil the rest. A 25 will not reach; buying two 25s and coupling them puts a connector in the middle of the walking route, which is worse than the spare.

Total cable per option, trunk plus every branch: A 62′, B 112′, C 196′. Worth noting that C on stands is 4′ more cable than the flown version it replaces, not less: flying went up once and travelled straight, whereas four ground branches dog-leg. Losing the ceiling costs a little cable and puts all of it underfoot. Every branch is a floor run now, so all three want ramps or a taped line where they cross the walking route: two crossings in B, four in C. That is the real cost of losing the ceiling.

Getting out

Storefront

the full south face, on La Brea

Fit rooms

the one opening in the north wall — the rest of that wall is solid

Lavatories

west wall, immediately right of the bar; the hallway runs west with Lav 1 and Lav 2 off it

What is drawn from what

Shell

the 65′×65′ space, column line, storefront and the two openings, from the Ark/8 floor plan

Finishes

white tiled columns and plinths, suspended garment rails, the oak counter, the fit rooms, pale polished floor and exposed ceiling — all from photographs of the room

Dressing

the room as it will be on the night: the gallery-wall side cleared, the run by the bar struck, the two runs by the stage down to their rails

Installation

the prints, the stage panel and the DJ stand — the proposal, not the building

No riser. The four 4′×5′ deck sections are struck. That was the one thing making the seating worse than it needed to be — six people across a 10′ deck came to 15″ of seat each — so on the floor the sofas open out to 24″ and 22″ a seat and the group spreads to 13′. What is lost is elevation: from the back of a full room the panel is heads in a crowd rather than a raised group. Set Crowd to Busy or Packed and look from the entrance before calling that a good trade.

Plan is orthographic. That view switches to a parallel projection, so walls stay parallel and you can scale off it — the 5′ floor grid is the ruler. Every other view is a normal perspective camera. Drag in the plan and you drop back into perspective, because you have stopped measuring and started looking.

Not a survey. Dimensions are scaled off a floor plan drawing, not measured on site. The column line, storefront and back-of-house openings are positioned to about a foot. Verify anything load-bearing, anything you are ordering material against, and the ceiling height before you build to it.

The bar queue is on a loop. Forty seconds: the line builds from the room, is served front first, shuffles forward and clears. It stands 2′4″ off the counter on the guest side and runs south along it, so five deep still stops short of the first garment rail and never crosses the lane. Longer than five and it starts to.