Using your space as an alternative venue for srt or performance can spark creativity and trust

by Kathleen Martin

What would your office look like by candlelight? If the thought of putting in a late night at work makes you cringe, it’s an image worth exploring. The staff at MAC Interior Design has found that changing the purpose of their workspace every now and again boosts morale, creativity, and business relations.

Every few months, MAC transforms its foyer into an intimate nightclub through Acoustic Roof (www.acousticroof.ca), a web portal that links performers with unique venues, often private homes. Warm candlelight hugging the exposed beams and brick twinkles off the high arched windows. The reception desk becomes a bar, and the firm invites musicians to play for its friends, clients, and partners. The parties last well into the early morning hours.

“There’s an energy that exists in a space—a soul,” says Dawn MacLachlan, a principal of the Halifax-based firm. “Acoustic Roof gives our space more of a soul.” Adds interior designer Carolyn Maguire: “The positive energy and buzz motivates you.” That energy stays in the office well after the event ends. “You see your workspace differently,” says interior designer Sarah Beal, “and it changes how you see your work.”

On a regular Friday afternoon, the second-floor boardroom at MAC’s downtown office is filled with the bright white ambient light of a cloudy sky. Neatly piled at one end of a long glass table are elements of a client presentation: boards meticulously displaying artistic renderings next to carefully matched paint, fabric, and carpet samples. Sitting beside them, somewhat surprisingly, is an old red brick.

“It’s funny what will inspire you,” says Beal. “I’m a rock girl. This brick used to be in this building that’s being demolished. We wanted to keep some of the palette in the new place, referencing what was there. One thing about the East Coast is there is an integrity around people’s sense of where they’re from and an insistence that the design reflect it. In other places, it’s more let’s just be hip, let’s just be modern—whatever that is, do it.” Quips MacLachlan: “But we refuse to do ropes and nets.”

MAC specializes in designing corporate, hotel, restaurant, and retail spaces. The amount of work that goes into interior design at this level is astonishing if your only understanding of the profession stems from reality TV. MacLachlan brings out large books several inches thick of AutoCAD technical drawings, of which space planning (what goes where) occupies only one sheet. There are drawings for demolition; construction drawings defining elements such as door and wall types; drawings for lighting layouts, drawings for voice, data, and electrical locations; as well as drawings for constructing cabinetry and defining flooring.

MacLachlan explains the details of choosing proper materials for their use, fire ratings, and clearances, plus something called the Weisenbeck test—the number of times a fabric can be rubbed before it wears through. “Eighty per cent of what we do is technical,” she says. “The creative side is a given in people’s minds. They don’t always understand the technical requirements of interior design. You can come up with a beautiful design, but if you can’t put it on paper so that it’s built properly, the beautiful design doesn’t do much good. You’re only as good as your drawings.” Adds Maguie: “It’s a balance. Sometimes when you immerse yourself too deeply in the technical side of things, you can feel drained creatively.”

That’s where an event such as Acoustic Roof—being away from work but at work—can make a difference. “It helps outsource our inspiration a bit,” says Beal. It literally brings different people and experiences into the workspace where the MAC team dreams up its designs. The interplay of ideas that arise from the myriad conversations that take place throughout the evening hovers in the space itself after the guests have left.

And since clients and collaborators come to Acoustic Roof evenings, they become part of the creative buzz. The MAC team works with the clients, from whom they are trying to draw the essence of a project. But they also co-ordinate the diverse partners in a building project, including architects, engineers, and tradespeople. It’s a complex set of relationships (think home renovation on steroids) that requires patience, clear communication, and the ability to understand a problem from a dizzying number of perspectives.

“Through Acoustic Roof, we get to know our clients and partners away from our projects,” says Beal. “This helps us understand them as people and helps us work better with them. We trust each other more.”

Kathleen Martin is a freelance journalist based in Halifax. She can be reached at masthead@ns.sympatico.ca.