Ceilings, ceilings, ceilings. What an under appreciated and over looked area of some of our most enjoyed spaces. It is truly an opportunity to create a new depth of field within any interior shell. I think maybe it’s modest to say we feel confined by space when space can liberate and free us. Space is in fact contrarily expansive and not the container our brain immediately looks to make. If we approached each surface as an octopus stretching its tentacles through a boundless watery world... I think how we perceive the interior parallels in which we dwell, would be a virtually new reality. Designers, don’t forget materials! It is the helping hand and mink coat to making any form talk, breathe and climb.
This is the Blautopf Ditzingen by Barkow Leibinger. Completed in 2008, this multi-functional exhibit space within a cafeteria is living up to its design intent by being a space that functionally and visually has endless possibilities for its use. What I find to be particularly lovely about this ceiling aside from its broad perspective engineered by Werner Sobek of Stuttgart, is the honesty of materials, achieving scale and importance while retaining modesty.
