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I live in a huge warehouse in Oakland, California. I bought it just a year ago with a whole group of people. Artists, craftspeople, a few wanderers and activists, a motley and spirited crew with a passion for everything, and the ability to agree on nothing. We couldn't even agree on layout for the warehouse. When we bought it, it was one wide open space. We built some basic infrastructure that it obviously needed – a nice sized kitchen, with hooks everywhere for hanging pots and pans, and a big table suited for all of us to eat together. A couple of bathrooms – two at either end. More than enough to accommodate all of us, and perfect for when we start throwing big warehouse parties. But when it came time to figure out the layout of the individual rooms, no one could agree on anything.
So we ended up deciding that we should try everyones ideas. A couple of us work in theater, and have a large store of room divider screens, so we decided that we would set everything up temporarily. Of course, the room divider screens aren't really enough by themselves. We have to construct some lofts to use the generous upper level, and even building the lofts proved an obstacle. Finally, we decided that instead of building lofts, we would build a whole second story of smaller rooms with railings and catwalks between them. This second floor would itself be divided by the room divider screens, and we would have twice as much space to play with. Of course, now we have to make a bunch more room dividers, and it has gotten so that every scrap of fabric, every spare piece of metal framing goes to the construction of new room divider screens.
I think that the room divider screens themselves will go into the design of the final product. You see, we all like to have our own personal space, but none of us is super big on privacy. We can set up sleeping spaces with the room divider screens, and then clear them away if we want to have a big show, or perhaps some kind of group project or event. As long as we keep everything clean, we can easily set one area aside with room divider screens which we can use to store mattresses and bedding while we are at work on something else.
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