Floor Plans

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Studio Building  Reference Center

2006-06-08 Rev.2006-06-17, -08-15, -11-11, 2008-01-04, -09-12, 2011-02-05

This page overlaps purpose with the Hotwalls page and most of the pictures here are also there.  The purpose here is to give a better idea of how the studios are laid out along with comments about the layouts.  As much as possible, the floor plan sketches are to scale. Some of the plans or photos may be out of date due to changes since they were created or taken, but they still represent characteristics of various studio for educational purposes.  Often the hotwalls pictures make layout fairly clear.

 

Bowman Art Glass, TX Fire Island, TX Vetro Art Glass, TX
Houston Art Glass, TX The Studio/Corning, NY Starfish, BC.CA
Chrysler Museum, VA    
Bowman hot glass floor plan drawing Bowman Art Glass in Dallas Texas is located across an expressway from downtown in a long narrow C shaped building that surrounds a parking area.  Among previous uses the site was auto repair shops.  The building was probably built about 1920-30.

Bowman studio and gallery occupy one end of the C and other artists' studios now occupy the remainder.  A couple of times a year all the studios hold an open house as part of the Cedars neighborhood artists' show case.

The Hot Shop, at the bottom of the plan, is at ground level with a garage type door.  The rest of the space is about 5 feet up, entered from stairs from the shop and a pair of stairs from an outdoor platform.  Primary entrance for the public is through the Gallery.  Two sets of overlooks allow observation of the blowing floor, one at gallery level and another up a short flight of stairs over a storage room.  Also, in good weather, the garage door opens behind the blowing bench for ventilation and for people to stand and watch.

The building provides a very generous amount of work space for the diverse activities of Jim Bowman and his wife Mary Beth```` which include large fused panels and stained glass.  Much of the area marked Flat Work has tables that allow all around access.  There are no living quarters.

Hot shop floor from gallery level overlook A This is a view of the blowing floor from the overlook at the end of gallery level taken before a more complete heat wall was installed.  The railing at the left is around the raised overlook mentioned above. (click to see larger)
Jim Bowman's gallery during open house B The gallery from the entry door to the larger room.

Fire Island floor plan drawing Fire Island in Austin Texas, now closed, was located in a warehouse area of smaller buildings.  Their immediate neighbor is a supplier of pottery clay.  The building is free standing with driveways down the sides to other buildings.  Large doors open on the drives with metal grillwork to allow ventilation without access.  The large blower is in a box outside to reduce noise. (2008-09-12)
   
Vetro Art Glass, Grapevine, Texas, floor plan drawing This floor plan is a reduction from one provided by Vetro Art Glass, thank you.  Located in a former Farmers Market building at the south end of downtown Grapevine Texas.  The building extends up (which is west) to include an open space used for receptions, then other artists' spaces including a large scale bronze sculptor.
It is located in a definite tourist area, across from the steam train station just off Main street of a town that promotes the small shops that line it and provides key crowd attracting events all year round, including a wine fest (Grapevine - right!)
I haven't visited recently enough to know whether the plan was changed or not.  When I was there, the entrance was at the top of the gallery, not in the middle of the side wall.  Perhaps the space above has been filled.  Besides the Gallery, the space with all the Greek Key markings (square zig-zag) leading around the seating is niches for displaying glass work.
The row of round circles in the middle is stations for torch working glass with the benches used to display glass during hot shop demonstrations.
Vetro, new gallery 2004  The shop is a two bench operation with overhead ducts for ventilation bringing makeup air down on the floor.  Annealers are to the left and a color oven to the right.  The hot wall crosses the top with (from left to right) furnace (?), large glory with yoke roller, small glory, pipe warmer, 2nd glory, and furnace.  Large doors at right give easy access for equipment.
Vetro 2004, hot floor front from behind viewing area  
Houston Hot Glass founders Houston Glass studio is a long narrow space occupying its own building in what is otherwise an apartment/condo residential area (Houston has a weird non-zoned set of rules enforced, supposedly, by deed..)  The lowest rectangle in the drawing is a covered concrete ramp. Inside, the open space just inside the door is used for seating and the gallery space actually extends along the back and side walls as well as in the enclosed space.  The hot floor is against the back wall.  Both the size and accuracy of this drawing probably cheat the space compared to the other drawing.
The studio shot below is roughly the view from the doorway at the bottom end.  The other shot was taken at about the letter G in Gallery on the floor plan diagonally across the room.
Houston Hot Glass products Houston Hot Glass, floor plan, drawing

 

The Studio at the Corning Museum of Glass ( www.cmog.org ) has been rebuilt and expanded once or twice since I took these images. The plans are from the Studio when the announced the expansion.  Because of its size, these are both thumbnails to larger images.  When I attended in 1999, the whole studio occupied roughly the rectangle in the image and the hot shop looked essentially like the lower image.  At that time, access to the hot shop was only by the hallway up about the center of the rectangle (between A & B.), then turn left behind the hot equipment wall, turning right twice to get to the seating area (top right.)    In the new arrangement, where the public is more accommodated, the class shop area has been expanded across the lower hall and the Cold Shop set up there it being previously smaller and occupying part of what is now the Lamp Shop.  When I was there, A and the space up from it was divided into two rooms - Lampworking and Other which could be Kiln or other flatwork with an accessory wet room, which I think has moved across the hall. If I make out the squiggle, A is now Other.  B & C were a library/classroom and the space now marked  Lamp(working) shop was divided between small cold shop and storage. [Click for much larger]
Corning Museum Studio, floor plan, drawing
The additions include what seems to be an auditorium, with hallway access beside it and a second hot shop and visitor studio.  Apparently windows provide viewpoints to various work spaces as the did when I was there.

The actual hot shop is shown left and is not much different, it seems, from when I was there.  Starting at the indicated double doors in the upper left we find two annealers (sliding top) with seating behind a glass wall behind them.  An exit door in the next corner leads down to another annealer and a hallway with locker storage on one side and office on the other.  Across the bottom we pass a fuming exhaust, a glory hole, a furnace, a pipe warmer,

Corning Museum Studio, hot glass detail floor plan, drawing
another gloryhole, then turn the corner and pass a color furnace and a third glory hole.  The basic setup is three benches matching the three gloryholes which vary in size somewhat.  Air, gas, and electricity are available overhead on drop pipes and outlets to avoid crossing the space.  The whole wall is sheet metal with openings closely matched to equipment and ventilation off the top.
The Studio Hot Wall long view from bleachers
The shot above was taken from the seating area at the top right corner of the floor plan viewing diagonally.  It shows two of the benches, the overhead fittings, the glass wall at lower right with the annealers behind it and on the wall from left to right, the pipe warmer, glory, white board, duck through access, color oven and glory hole. More pictures of the old setup on my visit page.

 

Floor plan sketch of Starfish glass in Victoria BCStarfish in Victoria BC (visited June 2003, now closed) is located in a unique two story building near downtown.  The hot floor is on the lower level, below street level while the gallery and viewing rail is on a balcony somewhat above street level. (Note how close the windows are to the ceiling inside and the space above the door in the entry view.)
Starfish, Victoria, BC, overall view montage
CHRYSLER MUSEUM, NORFOLK VA
In the winter of 2010, the Chrysler Museum of Art, which holds some 10,000 glass objects, announced the creation of a 7,000 square foot hot shop across the street from the museum in a former bank branch.  Glass journal's listing of the announcement mentions a $7.5 million budget with endowment, two full time positions and additional part-time to support demonstrations and classes.  The first floor plan below is taken from a pdf from the website and design is by "the nation's foremost designer and fabricator of glass studio equipment, Eddie Bernard of Wet Dog Glass, LLC."
Quoting the site "The Chrysler Museum Glass Studio will feature:
• A furnace capable of melting 500 pounds of glass.
• Three glory holes for reheating glass objects as they are being formed.
• Five annealing ovens that slowly cool molten glass to room temperature and support mold-cast glasswork and fusing.
• And a flameworking table with space for eight artists to work on projects including beadmaking and sculpture using glass rods and tubes." 2011-02-05

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