Spotlight on Eastlake Studio
Eastlake Studio is a Chicago-based interior design and architecture firm that has been operational for 35 years. They specialise in corporate office design, producing state-of-the-art workspaces for their clients.
WE SAT DOWN WITH PETER RANDOLPH, ONE OF THE CREATIVE MINDS BEHIND EASTLAKE STUDIO’S IMPRESSIVE PORTFOLIO.
You pride yourselves in creating great places to work, play and live. How do you ensure that you embrace this philosophy when you approach a new project?
PR \ Our philosophy really begins with asking a question before we start designing. We always ask ourselves “what if”. I think that the way that we create space is by interviewing, by asking questions, by interrogating before we ever set pen to paper. It’s really only when you talk to people, to your clients, to the public who is using your design that you are able to suss out the real issue underneath and give the work meaning. Ask questions first then design.
How has the pandemic affected Eastlake and the way you approach your designs?
PR \ The biggest way that the pandemic has affected the way that we design and the designs that we produce is it has changed the way we meet and collaborate. So if our process is all about asking questions and talking with people it has changed the way that we have had to ask the questions. Creating a sort of divide where you are not in the same room as the person means that we have asked the questions more, more often and in more varied ways.
I think one of the things that has been very exciting is that it allows us to let people in a sense work independently then bring things together in a kind of classic model of design as opposed to the way that things usually go where you are all designing in a room together pulling things, piecing things together, sketching together. In a way it has given all of our workers, our designers and architects the ability to have a little more agency in their design while also requiring them to have a little more responsibility. They have to come with more fully formed, developed ideas, they can’t rely on the process of just being in a room together.
On the other side of that it has made it very challenging to present to clients, to talk to clients, to get them to understand what things look like in the real world. That’s only pushed us further in terms of how we represent graphically, we are relying less on seeing materials and speaking in person and really relying on the drawing, the tools of architecture to communicate design. So in a sense it has almost made us go to a more classical model of design while using greater and greater technology.
What trends do you think we can expect to see post-pandemic?
PR \ I think there are several really important trends in the world of workplace design that we are going to see. A lot of these trends are things we were already seeing, already pushing towards, they’ve only been accelerated.
One trend is that the office is going to be a space less about heads down working and much more about collaboration. It is going to be a space defined by how you meet and interact with people rather than how many butts you have on seats.
The second thing is that it is going to be almost like a showroom. The idea that the office expresses the company’s culture and image, that it fuels and reinforces that is so much more important than it ever was in the past. I think we are going to see a real leap in the third spaces of the office, especially outdoor spaces. It is only going to get more crucial to the functioning of the office that people have a sort of agency and choice in where they can work, where they can meet. It’s not just you’re at your desk, or a conference room, it’s where are the huddle rooms, phone rooms, the little niches, the nooks and crannies.
I think it’s really going to be about giving workers choice and controlled agency over how and where they work.
We love seeing our furniture pop up in Eastlake Studio projects, what is your go to Allermuir piece or collection?
PR \ When I think of Allermuir there are three major products that pop up in my mind for very different reasons but they’re so important to the overall design of a space.
The first is the Crate Divide product. What I love about that is that it allows you to flex and mold space to divide but also having something that is permeable but functional.
The second is the Kin family of seating which I think really expresses Allermuir’s strength in creating a suite of products at all different scales from stools to chairs that are just design unified but each with its own personality.
The last is the Haven Bench which I really love because it has an almost architectural feel to it in that it functions like millwork. It is a very simple, articulated bench piece that you can just slide into the spaces and it just feels like it was always part of the design, never a piece of furniture.
We strive to make our products comfortable, functional, durable and sustainable all while being aesthetically pleasing. What do you have at the forefront of your mind when selecting loose furniture for your clients?
PR \ This is actually an easy question for me to answer because the first thing we have in our mind is what is the relationship to the overall design idea.
That comes from two sections I think. One is in the plan, does it need to be a piece that is an object, a piece that is in a row or a modular piece - that narrows it down immediately.
The second is what is the overall design language of the project, is it angular, is it overstuffed, is it a contrast or is it very rectilinear pieces. Once we have those parameters set then we can start to filter even more through the product categories.
Tying it back to the overall design idea and how it relates to the plan that is what is at the front of my mind when I pick furniture.
Do you find yourself reverting to classic pieces of furniture you have specified before or are you always on the lookout for something new?
RP \ The answer is yes to both. For us each project is incremental in a way in that we bring in maybe three quarters of specifications that we know and trust and know that they are always going to work. That gives us the freedom to experiment, to find what’s new, to expand the boundaries a little bit so that over the course of a year the library may change completely.
We always try to walk that line of specifying product that we know always will work, always fits, we can stand behind with no questions, without thinking about it, and bringing in the avant-garde.
As creatives you feel it is important to give back to the community to promote justice, unity, and inspiration. What is your favorite initiative that Eastlake Studio is currently working on?
RP \ I am very excited to share the story of an initiative we have called Sounding Boards. Sounding Boards was established at the height of the pandemic and after the George Floyd murder in Minneapolis. There were many protests in Chicago and most of the vacant businesses boarded up their store fronts so Eastlake Studio established a non-for-profit where we connected our connections in real estate with muralists and donors across the city of Chicago to paint murals with social justice messages on these abandoned boarded up store fronts and we ensured as part of this process that they were both credited, recognized and also paid. It was a way of connecting artists with sites, locations and with clients across the city of Chicago.
Of course that is very temporary and as we move out of the pandemic the boards have been taken down, businesses have reopened so we have salvaged all of these murals and we are exhibiting them at the Chicago Architecture Biennial. We have engaged a church in North Lawndale where we have done pro bono work to reconfigure their sanctuary and their soup kitchen. They have a vacant lot behind their church and we are currently working with Redmond construction, with the church and with other partners to use these pieces of plywood 8x4, with murals painted on them. To use them as a construction material to make stages, benches, planters, to make an activity and memorial garden that will be a feature in the upcoming Biennial starting in September.
Something that was a small kernel of an idea we had that was a response to a very immediate situation in Chicago has snowballed into this event. We are just a small part of it, we are the organizer, it’s really about the artists and the creators. We were able to connect people and to use our relationships in the world of real estate to make this happen.
Photography Credit — Kendall McCaugherty, Hall + Merrick Photographers
Quote Credit — Eastlake Studio
Eastlake Charity Initiative — Sounding Boards
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