On Tuesday we made a scale version of our set, including the furniture we designed. After a few maths related scaling problems, I constructed my scale bookcase, and all of our models came together so we could see how the finished room would look.
On Wednesday in our tutorial we discussed the practicality of such small rooms with so much furniture. After fighting tooth and nail to keep our screen and most of our furniture, we resolved to change the drawing room from 12' by 12' to 16' by 16', and the study became 12' by 8' to make it seem more claustrophobic.
The screen is supposed to be the focal point of the study. We decided to a have a physical representation of what Ivan was seeing in his mind. The book said he was putting up screens to block the pain and thoughts of death ('it'), so we translated this to a literal screen and as in this era they still had modesty screens we felt it wouldn't be out of place. This screen was supposed to hide 'it', but still give the impression the 'it' was breaking through to reach Ivan. A darkness or mould will also creep from this corner, reaching out to the sofa where Ivan would be lying, but not reaching the door to the next room. this is why we were so keen to keep the screen (which was lovingly designed by Sarah). We also felt we needed to keep the other furniture, such as the bookcase and desk, so that it still felt like a study. We also wanted to keep most of the furniture in the drawing room as we had designed furniture which was mentioned in the book, and we had already removed some of it due to lack of space, like the piano. It still needed to appear to be a room for entertaining, even though it will be smaller than an actual drawing room.
We therefore agreed that enlarging the drawing room would be the best option to create space and simultaneously make the study feel more claustrophobic, without taking out things that we felt were important.
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