Ruth Arts Foundation
Milwuakee, WI
The Ruth Arts space is the adaptive reuse of a former warehouse located in Milwaukee’s historic Walker’s Point district. As the foundation’s first public physical space, the multipurpose building functions as an art gallery, a community kitchen, and artist studio. Soft-Firm collaborated closely with the Ruth Arts Foundation to articulate how the interior fit-out could support the organization’s vision for a home that cultivates artists, their collaborators, and the community.
The material palette utilizes stainless steel and plywood saturated with colors from the Ruth Arts’ graphic identity. Materials are a pragmatic nod to the spaces’ industrial history, and provide a tactile pop of color against the space’s existing whitewashed brick, concrete, and exposed timber palette.
We imagined the user experience as travelling through a gradient of zones: Welcome, Gallery, Community, and Studio. Within this gradient, we focused on strategic interventions that support a range of public programs at multiple scales of gathering, from viewing art, receptions, artist talks, art creation, community workshops, performance, to simply co-working for Ruth Arts employees.
+ Renovation designed by MOS
+ Table & kitchen fabrication by Zak Rose / Dock 6 Collective
+ Photography by Landre
Milwuakee, WI
The Ruth Arts space is the adaptive reuse of a former warehouse located in Milwaukee’s historic Walker’s Point district. As the foundation’s first public physical space, the multipurpose building functions as an art gallery, a community kitchen, and artist studio. Soft-Firm collaborated closely with the Ruth Arts Foundation to articulate how the interior fit-out could support the organization’s vision for a home that cultivates artists, their collaborators, and the community.
The material palette utilizes stainless steel and plywood saturated with colors from the Ruth Arts’ graphic identity. Materials are a pragmatic nod to the spaces’ industrial history, and provide a tactile pop of color against the space’s existing whitewashed brick, concrete, and exposed timber palette.
We imagined the user experience as travelling through a gradient of zones: Welcome, Gallery, Community, and Studio. Within this gradient, we focused on strategic interventions that support a range of public programs at multiple scales of gathering, from viewing art, receptions, artist talks, art creation, community workshops, performance, to simply co-working for Ruth Arts employees.
+ Renovation designed by MOS
+ Table & kitchen fabrication by Zak Rose / Dock 6 Collective
+ Photography by Landre
Flexible millwork & furniture conceived of as nested, adaptable surfaces that function as display, work surface, seating, enclosure and storage:
At the Cubby, nested benches and stools can
be deployed through the space as clusters for intimate conversations,or arrayed as audience seating for performance.
In the Studio, a tool shed functions as a working shop, or can be screened off with movable partitions that serve as pin-up surfaces on one side, & vertical storag on the other.
At the Bar, a community kitchen with two
convertible tables can be rearranged from
a kitchen counter, to a conference table,
to a bar for staging events.
