Interior Design - Rat Cellar "Hang Out" for CSUN Student Union

If you enter from the east, you pass between two large rat trap shaped doors. If you enter from the inside, you pass through a giant mouse hole.

This is an existing space, windowless with low ceilings. Inside, there is a choice of activities. At one corner is a salad and refreshment bar, rats eat rabbit food you know. At another end, is a stage for entertainment, maybe a magic show can turn one of the patrons into a rodent. The space is dark overall with lights placed strategically around the stage and over the salad bar. Throughout the space are large cheese wheels, hollowed out for sitting. Each block of cheese has control of its own lighting. To the extend that it can be economically achieved, each table or sitting area should have control of a down light over the table, either at the booth or at a wall panel that is easily accessible. The "Regulars" will figure it out. Tables are cheese colored plastic coated plywood with gnaw marks.

There is a food preparation area existing behind a temporary wall. This wall will be removed and a cafeteria line added. The food provided will be for light eating. Various types of salads, green to pasta, will be available along with beverages, munchies, and deserts. There will be little or no cooking, frying, or backing. A microwave will be provided in case someone wants warm potato salad.

Just inside the east doorway, a bulletin kiosk will provide space for posting fliers, advertisements, announcements of events on campus. This kiosk will be lit with track lights.

The walls are decorated to resemble the inside of a cellar. Electrical wires are represented by blue, green, yellow, and red neon tubes. The room is also fulled with boxes and containers which disguise the waist containers and other support equipment. Dividers and other objects have gnaw marks on them. It is my hope that a way can be worked out to allow Art 3D and Theater students build these sets as part of a class project. Between the three existing columns, will be added a beam with objects hanging from it typical of junk you might find in a cellar. The walls will have murals by CSUN student, art work, neon, a bicycle hanging on hooks by its wheels, an old manual lawn mower, and more junk. The wall behind the stage will be left undecorated so that the performer can control his/her scenery.

This is an area in which student can escape from the frantic pace of the university. In keeping with the rat theme, faculty will be welcome.