For the location of my new darkroom I chose the ground floor of this granite walled barn. Because they are 50 cm thick and partially buried on the east side (you are looking at now) the granite walls act as a temperature regulator. Furthermore the first floor protects the ground floor from heat coming through the roof in the midst of summer.
We live at a hight of 1000 meters in the middle of France. In winter temperatures can get as low as -20'C (-4 'F) and in summer they go up to +40'C (104 'F). But in winter our cats' water bowl has never frozen inside the barn. And in summer inside temperatures were typically 25 'C. They never exceded 28 'C.
I wil isolate the darkroom ceiling. The walls will be plastered but not isolated, to keep their temperature regulating function. Ideally the walls should be isolated on the outside, but that would destroy the traditional aspect of the barn. Experience will show if I have to add isolation.
Inside the barn is 6x8 meter (19.5x26 feet). A surface of 48 m2 (516 ft2). It has to be divided into a darkroom area and a print finishing / office space. After a lot of deliberations I decided on a darkroom space of 4.4 x 6 m, and a print finishing space of 3.3 x 6 m, with a concrete wall between them.
Group space
This darkroom has to be optimised for me when I'm working alone on my fine art prints. But it also has to accomodate up to 6 persons while I teach my workshops. What is the best architecture to provide both?
Every enlarger needs enough working space. At the very least 80 cm. But preferably more. In a normal one-person darkroom the dry and wet sides are on opposite walls, with 1 to 1.5 m between them. Narrow enough to simply turn around when changing from the dry to the wet side, but still large enough to move around.
The best way to provide this for multiple persons is to make long dry and wet sides, with the same 1 - 1.5 m between them. In my 6 m long darkroom I could put 5 working stations in a row, if there wasn't a door. With a door in the middle there is space for 2 large workspaces on each side of the door. And when I put the wet side in the middle of the room, another 4 enlargers could be placed on the other side of the wet space.But I need storagespace too, and a wooden beam in the middle of the barn supports the first floor. So I came up with this :
The width of the wet bench has to lodge the short side of my largest trays. About 75 cm wide. The length will depend upon the measures of the materials I can find. But it has to be at least 4 m (12 feet).
