Office of Tangible Space completes dance studio with "highest poles in New York City"
New York design studio Office of Tangible Space has completed a pole dance studio in New York City with burgundy velvet curtains, a shoe rack for heels and lighting that's optimised for self-recording.
Goodside Studios is located in the Lower East Side as an "inviting yet edgy" environment for dancers who'd like to explore the discipline for enjoyment and "not the male gaze" according to the team.
Office of Tangible Space and Goodside Studios founder Tze Chun worked together to incorporate dancers' tips for the studio, which combines moody browns and reds across two floors to create a space informed by the tastes of musician Grace Jones.
"The studio reimagines what a pole space can be: inviting yet edgy, refined yet raw – a place that Grace Jones would feel at home in," said the team.
Visitors enter into a small lobby with a lounge, check-in and retail area, which contains books and accessories for sale, along with refreshments in a Rocco fridge.
Across the way, the lounge is outfitted with metallic chairs by Office of Tangible Space for Bestcase, a blocky red Fred Rigby Studio couch and Sundays wood side tables.
"The lounge has become a space where dancers will relax, sometimes for over an hour, pre-and post class," said Chun.
A large, red divider fitted with deep red curtains backs the space, and leads into a pole studio beyond. Office of Tangible Space said the "portal" was one of the most important elements of the design.
"The 12-foot-high curtain portals became the anchor of the ground floor, saturated red in an otherwise neutral palette," project manager Katelyn Nemnich told Dezeen.
"This was our answer to balancing a flexible studio space that's eye-catching from the sidewalk and honors the dancer's privacy."
The studio behind the curtains, called Studio High, is outfitted with 16-foot-tall (4.8 metres) stainless steel poles, which Office of Tangible Spaces had custom-made to fit the double-height ceilings.
"The ground-level studio's tall and airy volume is anchored by 16-foot tall poles, the highest in New York City," said the studio.
Each pole sits on the intersection of a gridded floor, which is made of walnut and oak.
According to Nemnich, designing the floor was one of the challenges the studio faced when creating the space, as it needed to be the right texture for the dancers, while still being visually appealing.
"It needed to be smooth and unobtrusive to the dancer's heels and bodies but it's such a wide plane of material that we wanted to feel dynamic," she said.
Combined with the lighting design, the upstairs studio creates a "cinematic backdrop for filming" , a requested element by the dancers.
"Self-recording is popular in the community," said Nemnich. "Our lighting design needed to consider the effect on dancers in video."
Another, smaller studio called Studio Low is located downstairs in the basement. Shorter, and lined with cream-coloured curtains, the space is "moodier" and "more intimate" according to the team.
Dressing rooms and the bathrooms are also located downstairs, painted in the same burgundy tones used on the floor above. The dressing rooms are concealed by curtains, and Ready to Hang mirrors line the walls.
A hallway sits between the dressing rooms and restrooms, where dancers hang and store their heels on a metallic rack.
"The 'Heelsway' is our hallway where dancers can keep their heels at the studio, displayed proudly under their individual name plates," said Chun.
"It's like having a toothbrush at a partner's home."
Office of Tangible Space recently refreshed the interiors of the cafe at the Brooklyn Museum, while the studio's co-founder Kelley Perumbeti has also curated a series of furniture exhibitions in San Fransciso.
The photography is by Claire Esparros
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