One room, three scenes

Parti by Edgeware is Edgeware's first industry solution. This is the room we have drawn for it, shown here in two of its planned uses.

In the first drawing a long counter runs along the back wall with a few small things on top. Tall stools stand along the front of it, a small table sits in the middle of the floor, and two people are in the room. This is the daily coffee use: the room open to whoever walks in.

The second drawing is the same room in the evening. The counter has not moved. A row of bottles and glasses stands on it now, the stools are gone, there is a second small table, and four people stand in pairs. This is the cocktail use. The walls, the door in the left wall and the big panel on the right-hand wall are exactly where they were, and so is the grid on the floor.

We put this pair first because they are the closest neighbours of the six. Coffee and cocktails want the same counter. The difference is mostly what is on it, who is standing around it, and what time it is.

What changed is what was brought into the room. In the design, connection points run across the floor. Counters and displays fit into them, and people take them out again by hand. The drawings show the floor as a plain grid and leave the connection points out, so read that as a design intention and not as something you can see in the picture.

Both uses here are plans, and neither has taken place.

Edgeware's garage factory is meant to have the same temperament: professional work, no big-plant swagger, designed for people to work alongside it.

Edgeware's first industry solution, Parti, has quieter uses planned for the same room.

In the third drawing the counter is gone. A long table stands in the middle of the floor with chairs around it, and four people are around it. This is the use for receiving business guests or holding a team day: one table, people sitting round it, no counter in between.

The fourth drawing is a training course. The long table has become four desks, staggered across the floor. A board hangs on the wall to the left, and one person stands in front of it while the others are at the desks. The door is where it was, and so is the big panel on the right-hand wall. The grid on the floor is the same grid.

Between the two uses, what moves is the tables, the chairs and the board.

A reception and a class ask different things of the same floor. In a reception people face each other. In a class they face one person at the front. The room has to allow both without anyone rebuilding it, and that is the question this pair of drawings puts to the design.

The people in the drawings are plain outlines on purpose. They stand for anyone, and for nobody in particular.

None of this has happened yet. These are uses we are designing for, and we would rather say so plainly than let a tidy drawing do the talking.

Edgeware's garage factory has the same kind of ambition: professional work in a workshop-scale place, done by one person or a small team. That is a goal, and we treat it as one.

The last two drawings are about showing things. Edgeware's first industry solution, Parti, plans for the room to do that too.

In the fifth, a launch, the room is nearly empty. One block stands in the middle of the floor, rather like a plinth, with three people around it. The big panel on the right-hand wall is still there. Nothing competes with the block. A launch wants an empty room.

The sixth is a pop-up. A few blocks of different sizes stand about the room, there is a long table as well, and two panels hang on the right-hand wall. Two people are looking around. A pop-up is a short programme, and when it ends the room goes back to being something else. A pop-up wants a crowded room, nearly the opposite of the launch, and it still happens in the same one.

Put all six drawings side by side and the room barely changes. Lay them over one another and the shell of the room lines up exactly. Same door, same walls, same floor grid. What changes is what stands in it and who is there. In the design, connection points run across the floor, and props fit in and come out again by hand. That is why we think of this as one room with several planned uses. Six uses, one room, and for now all of it lives in the drawings.

The Parti uses above are plans. None has been held, and none is open to the public. Separately, the Edgeware Garage Cell is in development, based on a real engineering model.