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Design Challenge

In order to mitigate sunlight falling upon a very sensitive piano, a screen was required that would in part block daylight. However, because the condominium in which the client and his piano reside is in a dense, urban area, it was also important that the design solution for minimizing light would not altogether eliminate the sense of the outdoors.

Design Solution

The solution for the pragmatic issues at hand emerged from the use of a black and white landscape photograph, taken by the photographer, Maggie Knaus. The photograph was scanned at a very high resolution and then digitally manipulated so as to achieve the proper opacity/translucency, scale, and likewise color that would block most light, but also permit partial views outdoors through "clearings" in the forest's image. This image was then doubled and a second layer was placed over the first layer, but the two were deliberately offset. In this way the density of the forest was also doubled and the sense of spatial depth was greatly increased, yielding the perception that as Dr. Tambay rehearsed, he was doing so alone in a forest whose branches glint in the light. Once the image was reworked via computer manipulation, it was transferred to the large glass panels. The installation is such that a notch cut from one of the panels allows the altered image to sit behind the original photographic print mounted on the adjacent wall so that a visual/conceptual dialogue can occur between the two works.