Upon entering Artcraft Collection’s new
Reston, Va., store, the eyes of many visitors
focus first on a green, hour-glass-shaped
ceiling. Sculptured monkeys
dangle from this cloud, along with halogen
spotlights that illuminate furniture
below and artwork and crafts displayed
on the store’s orange, green, purple and
baby blue walls. Drawn by color and
light, customers’ eyes glare at the thousands
of art wonders available for sale.
But eventually, store geometry turns
gazes gently back from the art and
toward some yellow circular ceilings, an
orange jagged wall, an undulating purple
backdrop. And on the eyes go—
moving from ceilings to products, from
products to walls and from walls back to
ceilings—in an endless sensory cycle of
art, light, color and shape.
Artcraft Collection President Jay Winer
gives no thought to his customers being
too mesmerized by the store to buy its
merchandise. Customers will keep coming
back because Artcraft Collection, he
says, has engineered a powerful space.
Designing the store was one thing, but
building it was another. What was it like
working on such a complicated store?
“This wasn’t a ‘read the drawings and
build it’ type of job,” says Jason Roach,
project manager, Arming Johnson Company. “We knew we’d be working closely
with the architect on this one.”
“Wow” Factor
Artcraft Collection sells one-of-a-kind
and limited-edition contemporary art,
home furnishings and furniture produced
by 450 American artisans. The product
mix at the 5,200-square-foot store in
Reston runs the gamut from tabletop
accessories to hand-painted buffets, ranging
from $25 to $8,000 per item.
“The store has ‘wow’ factor,” says Winer
about his Reston location. “There isn’t
anybody who walks inside that doesn’t
have this incredible reaction to the merchandise.”
To design the store, Winer, who co-owns
Artcraft Collection with his wife Sharyn
and son Adam, turned to architect Ron
Brasher of DRBrasher Inc., Columbia,
Md. Brasher, in turn, lined up Buch
Construction, Laurel, Md., a general
contracting firm specializing in retail
store construction, renovations and tenant
fit-out projects. Buch Construction
invited only selected subcontractors to
bid on the work, and Arming Johnson
won the walls and ceilings contract.
Arming Johnson, a division of Anson
Industries Inc., is a “big-little firm,”
according to Roach. The company’s
Lorton, Va., office—one of eight district
offices in the country—handles everything
from department stores and condominiums
to small shops and specialty
projects.
“We specialize in the big and complicated,”
says Roach of the Washington,
D.C.-area office. “The Artcraft job fell
in the category of ‘complicated’ because
of the ceilings.”
Roach explains that the architect knew
exactly what he wanted in terms of the
layout, the shape of the walls and ceilings,
and the store’s overall atmosphere
and feel. He specified multiple ceiling
islands made out of Sheetrock® Brand
Gypsum Panels from United States
Gypsum Company running on several
different planes. The architect, however,
welcomed some input on how to pull
off the ceilings.
How would the curvy ceilings be built?
Would Anning Johnson frame out the
structures, use a specialty millwork system
or order pre-engineered ceilings?
What did the architect say?
“He was very open to our suggestions,”
Roach says. “From the beginning, the
architect and the general contractor
made us feel like we were part of a team.”
Creative Approach
For example, the architect originally
thought that one part of
the ceiling system—
eight, 3-foot-diameter
ceilings that cantilever
inward from storefront
windows—should be
framed with wood studs.
But Roach says his foreman
knew it would be
impractical to build such
tight ceiling radiuses
using wood. It would
have been tedious and
expensive and would
have made the overhangs
Artcraft Collection’s new 5,200-square-foot
unnecessarily heavy.
The creative approach involved using
the USG Drywall Suspension System
and Compässo™ Suspension Trim from
USG Interiors, Inc. Using a pre-engineered
drywall suspension system
enabled Arming Johnson to avoid building
labor-intensive structures. The suspension
system simplified the design
and made it easy to transition between
various ceiling elevations.
Mechanics built 3-foot-diameter ceiling
suspensions off the front windows,
splaying the hanger wires toward the
front of the store to hide them. Using
ceilings here and throughout the store
allowed Arming Johnson to create uniformity—
one system of tees and clips,
one manufacturer, one way to gear up
for production. Consequently, Roach
obtained permission to switch from a
ceiling trim brand specified by the architect
to another product.
“The best part of this job is we had
everything figured just right,” Roach
says. “Given our experience with these
kinds of jobs, we knew our options and
how to price them. We didn’t have a single
change-order on the project.”
Positioning Main Tees
A critical aspect of the ceiling installation
involved positioning the main tees and
cross tees of the suspension system so
that recessed lighting fixtures, sprinkler
heads and air returns could be placed in
the metal grid.
One 15-foot ceiling cloud, for example,
has six recessed light fixtures running in
a line down its center. This is where the
suspension systems flexibility came into
play. It has connection holes punched
every 8 inches, which allowed mechan-ics
to plan the grid precisely so few of the
lighting fixtures, sprinkler
heads and air ducts fell where
the structural main tees ran.
“We got most of the lighting to
work out,” says Roach. “But
we did have to cut a few of the
cross tees because of the
numerous lighting fixtures.”
Building the walls also took
time. Many of the store’s back
walls curve and undulate, and
the framing required extra
blocking to support shelving
for the merchandise. Some
walls had jagged edges, which
required the finishers to become artists
themselves to achieve a clean, finished,
high-end look.
“There’s also a big soffit in the back that’s
radiused,” Roach says. It goes from 10
feet above the finished floor to the deck
20 feet up. We built it using a combination
of track and studs with drywall grid
at the bottom. The soffit was not
detailed in the plans. We knew they
wanted a radius, but we had to figure
out how to build it.”
In the end, the work was completed in
about two months. Since the Reston
store’s opening, “sales ‘have just been
phenomenal,” Winer says.
Roach says his company’s work at Artcraft
Collection finished on budget and
helped Arming Johnson fill in time
between bigger jobs. In addition, the
Reston Artcraft Collection store has
become a company showcase of its walls
and ceilings abilities and skills. “The
huge buildings we do can easily turn
into vanilla and drag on,” Roach says.
“But smaller, more specialized jobs allow
us to pay attention to details and have
fun. The Artcraft store is a point of pride
for the company,”
