This was a student project by Rachel Eiferd for Emily Mohr's course ARCH 8410 with visiting graduate architecture faculty Jackilin Ha Bloom and Florencia Pita (of Pita & Bloom) in Autumn 2018. For my project, Easy Office, I obsessively collected a ready-made object, the cap. In the index, the caps are being organized by color, material as well as the amount of space they take up on the postcard size image. The wide assortment of caps displayed in my index further emphasizes the individual qualities of each cap. The ready-made object in my office can be seen in a number of different scales. These scales range from bench seating, to desk, to habitable spaces, to light wells. The ready-made object has the functionality to contain and protect things. Much like the original functionality of the cap, the caps in my project provide the same containing qualities to employees working in their individual spaces. In the capsule office, the intermittent spaces are created to spark conversations for unplanned encounters, while the casts create phone booths. The photogrammetric prints are semi-enclosures that house larger meeting areas like conference rooms or a single office that holds four to five people. These different scales of objects within the space help mitigate not only noise disruptions, but also visual disruptions that are undesired in the open office. Hatches appearing on the floor and walls of the building are a study of shadows cast by the objects in the office. The layering of these hatches provide a different depths and opacities and adds to the uniqueness of the different working areas. Color in the project only appears in the light wells that are loosely grouped around the office and signify major meeting areas. The colors present in the light wells come from the colors in the collection index. The light wells also provide visual interest for the office occupants that protects against visual distractions among workers. The interaction between the color light wells and the white washed objects on the ground puts the occupier in a new kind of office terrain. - Rachel Eiferd
