No Straight Walls

Noor Fasi: This is The RightUp. I'm Noor Fasi. My guest designed a museum wing with no straight walls anywhere in it. The client said yes on the first pass. Construction was another story. Elias Brandt, welcome.

Elias Brandt: Thanks for having me, Noor.

Noor Fasi: Why no straight walls?

Elias Brandt: The collection is mostly sculpture. Straight walls make a room feel like a corridor you walk past things in. Curves slow you down. They make you walk around the work.

Noor Fasi: And the client agreed straight away?

Elias Brandt: On the first presentation. Which, honestly, worried me more than a no would have.

Noor Fasi: So what almost went wrong?

Elias Brandt: The contractor's framing crew had never built a curve. Not once. Their first wall was set out as a series of short straight segments, and from the gallery floor you could see every joint.

Noor Fasi: How did you find out?

Elias Brandt: I walked in on a Tuesday and the light was catching every corner that shouldn't have been there. We stopped work that afternoon.

Noor Fasi: And the fix?

Elias Brandt: Three weeks, and a redrawn foundation plan. We changed how the base plate was set out, so the curve was built in from the ground rather than bent in afterwards. The crew turned out to be excellent once they could see what we meant.

Noor Fasi: Elias Brandt, thank you. That's No Straight Walls, on The RightUp.