The Nature of Making
for Merida Studio | 2025 | Environmental Design, Project Management, Curation, Creative, Photography
Creating a gallery-forward environment that aligned the brand’s physical presence, team mindset, and client experience.
Over four years, Merida Studio had evolved from a traditional artisan workshop into a textile art studio, a shift embodied clearly in its New York Gallery. That space presented the studio’s work as art — minimal, intentional, and refined. In contrast, the Boston showroom at the Boston Design Center lagged behind, presenting the textiles as products rather than artworks.
The Boston space was cluttered with outdated branding, overcrowded with samples, and visually indistinguishable from neighboring vendors. The environment subtly reinforced an outdated internal mindset as well; it was difficult for the sales team to communicate the studio’s current values when their surroundings still reflected its past.
Although the studio had outgrown the space, it needed to finish out its lease. The challenge, then, was to transform the showroom — physically and culturally — into a gallery that matched the brand’s present and future direction.
Working with a very limited budget, I led the redesign and execution of the Boston Gallery, managing the project from spatial design and furniture curation to exhibition planning and brand alignment. The goal was not just to update the room, but to reshape how the work was seen, discussed, and valued.
By stripping the space back to its essentials and borrowing cues from the New York Gallery, the strategy refocused attention on the textiles as artwork while giving the Boston space its own purpose.
01
Strategy
The first step was subtraction. I conducted a full audit of the existing showroom, identifying elements that no longer aligned with the brand’s identity or actively distracted from the work. At the same time, I studied documentation of the New York Gallery to keep its tone—spacious, quiet, art-forward—top of mind.
Because the Boston showroom had a fundamentally different footprint, the goal was not replication but alignment. I saw an opportunity to give each physical location a distinct identity while maintaining a shared brand language across New York, Boston, and eventually the Fall River workshop. The Boston Gallery could offer its own strengths: a welcoming front gallery paired with a more collaborative, working back space.
Internally, part of the strategy was clarity. Every removal and change needed a rationale—both for leadership approval and for helping the sales team understand how the environment supported the studio’s values. The guiding principle became simple: remove distractions until only the work and the conversations around it remained. The textiles would be presented front and center, not as samples, but as artworks.
Through careful auditing, visual mockups, phased renovations, and selective sourcing, the space was transformed with minimal cost and minimal disruption to daily work.
02
Process
I began with a site visit and photographic documentation of the space, creating accurate visual mockups to test layouts, sightlines, and furniture placement. I spoke directly with the sales team to understand their daily needs—storage, acoustics, collaboration—so the redesign would support their workflow rather than disrupt it.
From there, I determined which furniture could be retained, what needed to be removed, and which new pieces would have the most impact with minimal cost. I sourced affordable, dependable furniture—such as an IKEA shelving system and a secondhand mid-century Danish table—prioritizing restraint over replacement. Mockups were used to visualize paint, lighting adjustments, textile mounting, material storage, and client seating, allowing the team to align on decisions before committing resources.
The transformation included removing outdated signage and built-in sample shelving, dismantling unused cubicles, raising back-room lighting to reduce visual noise, removing industrial rubber trim, and installing horizontal textile mounting systems. Vinyl wall text replaced legacy signage, reinforcing the new brand tone. I also curated and oversaw the gallery’s opening exhibition, using it as both a debut and a reset for how the space would be used moving forward.
To support future exhibitions, I created an evergreen floor plan template that allowed the team to experiment with textile placement and furniture layouts without starting from scratch each time.
03
Collaboration
I worked closely with the Boston showroom manager to coordinate electrical work and oversee the installation of vinyl wall text and with the Production Manager to schedule craftsmen to repaint the space, remove trim, and prepare and install the textile works. Throughout the project, I collaborated with the studio owner to define priorities, manage the budget, and secure approval at key decision points.
04
Challenges
Budget was the most persistent constraint. While a full lighting replacement was originally planned, cost limitations required compromise—retaining industrial hallway lighting while adjusting and lifting lighting in the back workspace. Timeline pressures were managed through a phased renovation plan: clearing out and minimizing first, then cleaning and reconfiguring, followed by targeted purchases.
Balancing brand alignment with team needs required flexibility. While cubicles conflicted with the gallery aesthetic, they provided necessary sound buffering and organization. We agreed to retain a limited number as a short-term solution, recognizing them as a temporary compromise rather than a permanent feature.
The renovated Boston Gallery reframed how Merida Studio’s textiles were experienced and discussed. Following the update, the space saw increased organic foot traffic from the Design Center and higher quote rates from visiting clients. More importantly, the environment helped shift the internal mindset—giving the sales team a setting that supported art-forward conversations and reinforced the studio’s values.
This project reinforced my approach to rebranding as a process of refinement rather than reinvention: stripping back to what matters, reworking what already exists, and filling gaps intentionally. The ability to create fast, low-cost visual mockups (using Procreate, Illustrator, and InDesign) proved essential—not just as a design tool, but as a way to align people, clarify decisions, and move projects forward efficiently.
The completed Boston Gallery now presents Merida Studio’s textiles in an art-forward context, aligning the showroom with the studio’s broader brand evolution and supporting client conversations, internal alignment, and daily work.