July 15, 2020

Bow Design proposed and delivered an effective and transformational décor scheme to Swansea University’s Bay Campus. It accentuates the positive and beautifies the available space…

The view from the Bay Campus’s dining room at Swansea University is stunning. The eye is drawn through any of the room’s many windows and into a sea scape that’s ever-changing. It’s painted by the mood of the prevailing weather, the state of tide and the seasons. Within the room itself, the story was written differently. Plain, neutrally coloured painted walls dominated and the mood was anything but a reflection of the dynamics played out only feet away outdoors.

The University approached Bow Design on a mission to lift the tone and mood of the Bay Campus dining room and proposed applying a mural to the room’s walls. The idea tabled would involve a beach scene that it was hoped would bring colour and interest to the room. Bow Design’s team surveyed the room with a view before reacting to the design proposal and to consider further ideas.

In the event, the Bow Design team asked the University to consider another approach. The reasoning behind Bow’s thinking was that a beach scene rendered within the room’s interior would not interact or contrast well with the real thing only feet away and clearly visible through the room’s windows. Bow instead proposed an applied room mural comprising simple line renderings of local landmarks. This, it was reasoned would provide a point of interest in the interior space, and contrast with the real banquet outside the dining room’s window - the whole of the ‘bay stretched out before. The proposal was received, debated and enthusiastically agreed by the University and Bow Design was awarded the work.

Matthew Anderson and his team at Bow Design are no strangers to jobs that have a demanding dimension to them and it’s the company’s willingness to find resolutions to challenges that distinguishes the way it operated. On this occasion, the White Metamark WallArt, SandTex finished, that was selected for the jobs contrasted visibly with areas of paint that would still be visible. Rather than accept the condition, Bow Design produced a range of printed background tones and found one that toned down the contrast when the team was doing its adhesion and installation tests.

The team’s design was printed on the Metamark WallArt, expertly applied and put into commission to do its job. It performs, as has Bow Design, brilliantly.

The room’s mood is now lifted by an involving rendering of local landmarks reduced by design to a bare suggestion of themselves. The walls are no longer plain painted expanses of uninvolved structure. They tell their own story and resonate with the locality. Beyond the room’s windows, the view over the bay invites the eye and doesn’t in anyway fight with the room’s newly decorated interior.

Bow Design’s client is delighted with the effect and the Dining Room’s customers approve too. It’s a great example of design being a founding quality in a job well done, and the power of confronting detail challenges with solutions.

Another winner from Bow Design.