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    “The world ran out of pink” due to Barbie movie production

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    The sets of Greta Gerwig’s upcoming Barbie movie required such vast amounts of pink paint, they swallowed up one company’s entire global supply, according to production designer Sarah Greenwood.

    Speaking to Architectural Digest, Gerwig revealed that the team constructed the movie’s fluorescent Barbie Land sets almost entirely from scratch at the Warner Bros Studios Leavesden – all the way down to the sky, which was hand-painted rather than CGI rendered.
    Barbie Land sets were built from scratch in a movie lot”We were literally creating the alternate universe of Barbie Land,” she told the magazine. “Everything needed to be tactile, because toys are, above all, things you touch.”
    To recreate the almost monochromatic colour palette of Barbie’s Dreamhouses, the set design team had to source a bottomless supply of pink paint to cover everything from lampposts to road signs.
    Almost everything from lamp posts to sidewalks is rendered in vibrant pinkIn particular, the production used a highly saturated shade by US manufacturer Rosco to capture the hyperreality of Barbie Land.

    “I wanted the pinks to be very bright, and everything to be almost too much,” Gerwig told Architectural Digest.
    So much paint was needed, in fact, that Greenwood says the movie’s production caused a worldwide shortage of that particular hue.
    “The world ran out of pink,” she joked.

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    Rosco later told the LA Times that the company’s supply chain had already been disrupted when the movie began production at the start of 2022, due to the lingering aftereffects of the coronavirus pandemic and the winter storm that shocked Texas the previous year.
    “There was this shortage and then we gave them everything we could – I don’t know they can claim credit,” Rosco’s vice president of global marketing Lauren Proud told the LA Times, before conceding that “they did clean us out on paint”.
    Margot Robbie plays the movie’s main characterSince stills for the upcoming movie were first released a year ago, the all-pink hyper-feminine “Barbiecore” aesthetic has infiltrated the design world, with Google searches skyrocketing and the term accumulating more than 349 million views on TikTok.
    Earlier this year, Barbie manufacturer Mattel collaborated with Pin-Up magazine to release a monograph on the architecture and interiors of Barbie’s Dreamhouse to mark its 60th anniversary.
    “There have been so many books and entire PhDs on Barbie, but never really on her many houses and her furniture,” Pin-Up founder Felix Burrichter told Dezeen.
    “So we thought it would be a good idea to make one and treat it as a serious subject, in the same way that Barbie has been treated as a serious subject over the years.”
    The image is by Mattel.

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      Kate Byron designs modernist Don't Worry Darling set as “a playful and debaucherous take on the 1950s”

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      Production designer Kate Byron used vintage “treasures” and referenced key modernist architecture to create the set of psychological thriller Don’t Worry Darling, which was shot in California’s Palm Springs.

      Byron drew on the architecture and interior style of the many modernist buildings that dominate the landscape in the desert city to create Victory – a fictional, utopian 1950s-style society where the film takes place.
      Katie Byron referenced modernist architecture for the film”We wanted to build a playful and debaucherous take on the 1950s, when there was this illustrious progressive, mid-century modern movement happening,” Byron told Dezeen.
      “The world of Victory is supposed to be alluring, it’s supposed to be beautiful and sultry and sumptuous and opulent.”
      It was shot in Palm Springs, a Californian city famous for its modernist architectureDirected by actor and director Olivia Wilde, Don’t Worry Darling follows fiery couple Alice and Jack – played by British actor Florence Pugh and musician and actor Harry Styles – as they go from living in an idealistic paradise to a troubled world fraught with secrets, control and manipulation.

      The characters move across a quintessential Palm Springs backdrop of low-slung buildings with clean lines by architects including Richard Neutra, Harold Bissner Junior and Albert Frey.
      Kaufmann House was one of the filming locationsSeveral scenes, such as a cocktail party hosted by the leader of Victory which took place in Neutra’s Kaufmann House, were shot in real modernist buildings, while the home of protagonists Alice and Jack was built in a Los Angeles studio.
      “We’re really lucky in California to have access to this architecture and in my history of being an architecture student and a production designer, I’ve gotten to visit a lot of these houses in person,” Byron said.
      “I was interested in Neutra, but also Frey was a huge inspiration for us because of that playful wholesomeness that he embodied,” she said.
      Alice and Jack’s house is filled with locally sourced propsByron, who studied architecture at University of California, Berkeley, threaded more subtle modernist details into the interiors of Don’t Worry Darling through devices such as colour.
      “A colour we used quite a bit was Frey’s favourite colour – this Frey blue – which is like a robin’s-egg blue that he puts in all of his buildings,” explained Byron.
      “There’s also a colour that Kaufman House has quite a bit of; Neutra put this really, really, really dark brown that almost feels black, but it has this warmth to it,” she continued. “We weaved that throughout the film as well.”
      Byron used lots of glass and mirrors throughout the setByron sourced vintage products from shops and prop houses in LA for Alice and Jack’s home, which recalls “cookie-cutter” houses – rows of identical homes found in idyllic depictions of 1950s suburbia.
      Much of the furniture seen was built from scratch, in part because the film was shot during the autumn of 2020 when many vendors were unavailable or had long lead times as a result of the coronavirus pandemic.

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      “When you’re in Palm Springs, they just have these antique stores and even in thrift stores and Facebook marketplace you can find really special things,” the designer recalled.
      “That’s also one of the most amazing things about Los Angeles – there are infinite prop houses here so we shopped quite a bit at all the local prop houses,” she continued.
      “The television in Alice and Jack’s house is from this vendor called RC Vintage, which is just like a treasure trove place of antique electronics.”
      Much of the furniture was made from scratchOther smaller references were embedded into Byron’s material choices, primarily glass, stone and brick.
      Meanwhile, the designer paid homage to Neutra’s storage cabinets, which the production team filled with items such as business cards, cleaning supplies and photographs of Alice and Jack to make the set feel more real for the actors.
      “Keeping with Neutra as our design inspiration, the house is designed with a lot of storage in mind – we wanted all of this stuff to be cleanly kept behind doors,” Byron said.
      The desert setting is designed to look like a utopiaByron hoped that by incorporating playful elements throughout the set she could “subvert” the sense of normalcy in Victory and play with the audience’s expectations of a thriller.
      “The thriller follows a formula often, and I thought it could be really great to just subvert that,” she said.

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      “I think the level of play helps viewers feel like they want to be there and if it wasn’t for the playful aesthetic, I think we would be expecting something to go wrong,” she added.
      Don’t Worry Darling is not the only film that draws on a key architectural movement to inform its set. Wes Anderson’s Isle of Dogs film sets were heavily informed by metabolist architecture, while Black Panther’s “voluptuous” sets recalled works by architect Zaha Hadid.
      The photography is courtesy of Warner Bros.

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      Jennifer Morden creates “aspirational” mid-century house with sinister dungeon for Fresh

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      Production designer Jennifer Morden created a mid-century house to reflect the personality of the flamboyant and misogynistic antagonist in comedy-thriller film Fresh.

      Morden and her team built two individual sets in a studio to represent the house for the film, which was directed by Mimi Cave and shot in Canada’s British Columbia.
      Fresh features a mid-century house that belongs to cannibal SteveThe sets were designed to portray the main floor and basement of a lavish mid-century house that forms a secluded lair for Steve – a seemingly-charming man who seduces women into dating him, after which he traps them in his basement and reveals that he is actually a psychopathic butcher of human meat.
      “We wanted to make as much as we could so we could customise it,” Morden told Dezeen in a video call from Canada, explaining the decision not to use a real house for the project.
      The dining room is positioned at the highest level on the main floorFresh tells the story of Steve’s relationship with Noa, who he briefly dates and subsequently lures to his house. The characters are played by actors Sebastian Stan and Daisy Edgar-Jones respectively.

      “The choice to go with a mid-century style house was partly because right now it’s really popular,” said Morden.
      “People love mid-century houses and they’ve had a big resurgence in modern design. It was also about Steve looking aspirational.”
      Dark wooden cabinetry was included in the kitchenOn-screen, the rooms on the house’s main floor are presented at subtly different levels from each other in what Morden called a “hierarchy of spaces”.
      A dining room is seen on the highest level, a kitchen slightly lower down, and then a living room and finally Steve’s bedroom.
      Plush furniture such as 1970s Camaleonda sofas by Mario Bellini and Eames-like armchairs decorated these spaces and were set against harsher accents including dark wooden cabinetry and built-in concrete seating.
      A curved basement informed by fallopian tubes holds women captiveThe other set representing the basement featured a concrete floating staircase dug out of rock, which leads to dungeon-like, teak-lined hallways that descend to cells with sunken beds where women are held captive.
      Steve’s operating room forms the basement’s lowest level, where he harvests the imprisoned women’s meat and body parts.
      “Wherever we see Steve in relation to his victims, he’s always at a higher level to them,” explained the production designer.
      Steve’s operating room is located at the bottom of the basementSteve’s house intends to reflect his complex and powerful persona, which quickly transforms from outwardly normal to sinister as the drama unfolds, according to Morden.
      “I was like, okay, everything we do needs to involve body parts, in some capacity. Every piece of artwork, every piece of furniture and the way the hallways are designed.”
      Imagery of body parts is repeated throughout the filmTo illustrate this idea, the production designer and her team placed a Michel Ducaroy “body chair” in Steve’s bedroom and created faux herringbone flooring from pieces of painted, hand-laid plywood, which Morden said she “really wanted to feel like ribs”.
      The curved, cave-like basement was informed by fallopian tubes and designed to be a grand auditorium for Steve – a “crazy” idea that Morden pitched in her interview for the project.
      An abstract painting conceals items belonging to Steve’s victimsAn abstract painting was placed on the living room wall, which actually included hair, teeth and nails on closer inspection. In an early scene, upon arriving at the house before she is drugged and trapped, Noa studies the artwork.
      It is later revealed that Steve hides personal items belonging to the captured women behind this painting in boxy cubby holes that mirror the basement cells below.
      Wooden and concrete accents feature on the main floor and in the basement”Mimi wanted to use the piece of artwork as a little Easter egg [a term for hidden messages in a film] for later because it’s the first thing Noa sees and she’s drawn towards it,” reflected Morden.
      “The idea was that if we can draw everything back to body parts then we can start to create the story’s subliminal messaging and foreshadow what’s to come as much as we can.”

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      The production designer said that it was important to visually connect the main floor to the basement, which was partly achieved by adding wooden elements to the mainly concrete basement and concrete elements to the largely wooden main floor.
      Eventually, Cave and cinematographer Pawel Pogorzelski had the idea to add vivid and humorous sunset murals to the walls of the women’s cells.
      The decision to incorporate colourful carpets became natural after this, linking the basement to Steve’s opulent quarters above, according to Morden.
      Kitschy holiday-like murals were added to the cells to reflect Steve’s obnoxious nature”The idea was, what if we made the basement this space that Steve thought he was gifting to these people?” she explained, referencing Steve’s obnoxious and flamboyant character.
      “What if we use the idea that this misogynistic and unaware male was like, ‘I’m going to create a room that’s going to feel so nice for my victims?’ What would he put in there?”
      Each of the women’s rooms has a different coloured carpetCinematographically, Fresh also has a warm and fleshy colour palette of reds and oranges throughout, which nods to its graphic storyline.
      “I think for me, the biggest thing is just telling people to find all the Easter eggs in the film. There’s so much repeated imagery, especially around body parts,” concluded Morden.
      Other recent film and TV productions that feature architecturally-centred set design include Oscar-winning The Power of the Dog and BBC drama The Girl Before.
      The images are courtesy of Jennifer Morden.
      Project credits:
      Director: Mimi CaveWriter: Lauryn KahnProduction designer: Jennifer MordenSet decorator: Stephanie AjmeriaSet designers: Peter Stratford and Amanda De CastroCinematographer: Pawel Pogorzelski

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      Inventing Anna interiors “richer” versions of their real New York counterparts

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      Production designer Henry Dunn drew on locations across New York to create a set that reflects the different social classes that the protagonist of the Netflix series Inventing Anna traverses.

      The head office of media publication New York Magazine, Rikers Island jail and the 11 Howard hotel in Soho all appear as exaggerated versions on the 11-episode series which was released on February 11 2022.
      “Our thinking all the way through this was the different varieties of wealth and the different types of socio-economic classes that Anna travels through,” Dunn told Dezeen.
      “We’re trying to sort of hit all of these different types of wealth and the disparities as best we could.”
      Henry Dunn created lavish sets for the upper-class charactersThe series is a dramatisation of journalist Jessica Pressler’s quest to write How Anna Delvey Tricked New York’s Party People, an article for the New York Magazine that went viral after exposing the antics of the now-convicted fake heiress Anna Delvey, who’s real name is Anna Sorokin.

      Created by American television producer Shonda Rhimes, Inventing Anna follows the lead up to Sorokin’s trial, while simultaneously going back in time to illustrate her actions.
      To recreate the main locations Sorokin visited and lived in while galavanting around New York, Dunn decided to make sets both in-situ and from scratch at Steiner Studios in Brooklyn, New York, a feat which Dunn describes as “a balancing act”.
      Expensive furnishings and finishes symbolize wealth”We started at the very beginning of 2019 and we had some big beautiful stages at Steiner Studios but we realised that we didn’t have enough space for all of the things that we needed to build,” Dunn explained.
      “We were very much trying to illustrate that there’s old money and then there’s art money and then there’s real money, which is the tech billionaires.”
      For the wealthiest character, the production team sourced six different wallpapersThe home of one of the wealthiest characters in the series belongs to Nora, a woman who Dunn refers to as “a real art person who’s loaded with dough”. It is one of the most featured sets in the series.
      Using research gathered from people who reside in New York apartments, Dunn built a duplex designed to look like a large townhouse in New York.
      According to the designer, Nora’s status is best symbolised in the furnishings and decor that adorn the set.
      “The way we really nailed her [Nora’s] place on the socio-economic ladder was in the finishes: whether it was the Venetian plaster, the antiques, the wallpaper or even the backsplash in her kitchen which is a tile that isn’t affordable to normal humans,” Dunn explained.
      “Nora’s house had maybe five or six different wallpapers, including the ones up in the up in the guest bedroom, where Anna is living,” he added.
      Some sets were created in buildings in New YorkTo further establish Nora’s status in the upper echelons of society, the designer worked with an art specialist to source paintings by artists such as Michel Basquiat and Yves Klein for the interior decoration.
      “We had a wonderful person working with us for arts clearance and so we were able to get all these artists that would have been untouchable that we had to build,” said Dunn.
      “Obviously, it’s not the real thing but they would send us a high-resolution file and then we would repeat over it so you could see the brushstrokes,” he continued.
      “Having that sense of legitimacy meant that people understood that this well-curated piece of character-dressing is meant to tell you who this woman is.”
      Others were built at Steiner StudiosBy contrast, Dunn wanted the journalist’s home to seem “a little dumpy” to help viewers recognise her lower social status. Her home appears cluttered and ordinary – serving to cement her position in New York society.
      “We built Vivian’s house on stage – it’s not a very big apartment and we were trying to make it as realistic as possible for two people who are expecting a baby,” he said.
      The journalist’s home is designed to contrast the expensive homesCreating sets from scratch gave Dunn the freedom to embellish the sets and to elaborate further than what would have been possible if they filmed everything in its original place.
      For example, he constructed the bedroom and lobby at the 11 Howard on stage, drawing on interior designer Kit Kemp’s chintzy work at the Crosby Street Hotel for inspiration.
      “The 11 Howard, which was the hotel where Anna stayed has a minimalist style that we thought would look pretty threadbare on screen so we went for something that would read as much more rich on stage,” he remembered.
      “We were going for with something that was more tactile and sort of a more layered look to it.

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      Another technique Dunn implemented was to mix high-end furnishings and homeware items with cheaper replicas that still gave the illusion of wealth.
      Placing something from a high street brand next to a luxury designer can make the scene feel and look expensive on television while in comparison to reality, said the designer.
      “A magic trick is if you put something in the right setting on television, you can get something like glasses at H&M or Target that will look incredibly deluxe while actually not being practical at all,” he explained.
      “Place them next to plates from Van Cleef & Arpels and they look perfect.”
      The Manhattan Magazine headquarters is based on the New York Magazine officesDue to legal reasons, the series had to create a fictional version of the New York Magazine, but Dunn wanted the made up magazine’s office to look similar to the real magazine’s headquarters.
      Again, he took the opportunity to create an exaggerated “expanded and blown up” version of the real workplace, this time adding a bright red wall to the backdrop.
      “We got to tour our location manager got us in there to walk around and see how the journalists lived,” said Dunn. “And so we researched it closely and then we really tried carefully create those offices as closely as possible.”
      “We’re trying to do something a little more, a little extra – there is a big red wall that says New York Magazine that you see when you come in and we took that and we sort of expanded it and blew it up,” he continued.
      Half of the prison scenes were shot in a real prisonThe main challenge for Dunn came as a result of the coronavirus pandemic. Halfway through filming the series, restrictions meant that the team had to change locations and delay some filming, meaning that many scenes had to be shot in two places.
      “We began shooting at the prison here in the city called Rikers Island jail and when the pandemic came, we still had 50 per cent of our scenes to shoot,” he recalled.
      “I don’t think anybody at home has any idea but the waiting room and the room where Anna and Jessica meet were in completely different spots,” he mused.
      Other Netflix series with elaborate sets include the playful arenas by art director Hwang Dong-Hyuk for the popular series Squid Games and production designer Grant Major’s set for the award-winning film The Power of the Dog which featured a prominent house.
      The images are courtesy of Netflix.

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      The set from The Girl Before features in today's Dezeen Weekly newsletter

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      The latest edition of our Dezeen Weekly newsletter features the set of BBC television series The Girl Before, which was designed to feel both like a sanctuary and a prison. More

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      ASKA creates escapist TV set for Stockholm Design Week interviews

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      Swedish architecture studio ASKA designed a set with terracotta colours, architectural shapes and real sand to create a sense of escapism for live interviews conducted during Stockholm Design Week.The backdrop was created for PR company Trendgruppen’s Design TV initiative, which was shown as a part of the Swedish capital’s annual design week.
      The 15-minute daily live episodes were conceived as a way of reaching an audience that, due to the coronavirus pandemic, were unable to attend the fair this year.

      A sculptural, terracotta-coloured sofa stands out against the peach background colour

      Reflecting the fact the much of the audience may be stuck at home, ASKA aimed to envoke a sense of escapism for the Design TV viewers.
      “Since we haven’t been able to travel for a while now we believe that the longing for exotic atmospheres is getting stronger – and we wanted to respond to this desire,” ASKA co-founder Polina Sandström told Dezeen.
      “The choice of colour therefore goes in tones such as peach, beige and terracotta, and the soft forms are inspired by the organic curves found in the Mediterranean area.”

      Linnea Legerfors and Polina Sandström of ASKA were interviewed by Stefan Nilsson for the live show
      The set also featured architectural shapes and a curated selection of glass, steel and ceramic accessories, as well as a pile of sand to underline the travel theme.
      The studio started the project by deciding on an angle and frame for the digital recording, and then designed and styled the setting from that one camera perspective.

      A variety of different materials including steel and glass created visual interest
      “By working with objects in different heights and placing details in different places – such as the sand pile, the folded fabrics and the vault backdrop – we were trying to create different focus points and thereby a more lively setting,” Sandström explained.
      “While placing interior objects with different distances from the wall and working with shadows we wanted to add a sense of ‘depth’ to the picture.”

      Architectural shapes were used to create a sense of stability
      ASKA chose a rich peach background colour, as digital settings require a lot of artificial light which can make the backdrop disappear.
      It also designed its own furniture, including a backdrop with vault-shaped openings, a coffee table and decorative pedestals to be used for the set. This was in an attempt to create a set design that would feel recognisable and safe.

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      “We believe that being part of a very fast everyday rhythm while tangling unpredictable life scenarios has created a desire for stability and that people are drawn to a design language that is recognisable and familiar,” Sandström said.
      “Fundamental architectural elements such as vaults and columns provide this sense of safety and stability. In this setting we chose to reuse some of these large scale elements and show them in a small-scale context, as interior decorations.”

      Trendgruppen PR’s Karin Sköldberg interviewed by Stefan Nilsson
      With the coronavirus having severely affected physical attendance at design fairs, a number of organisers and brands have turned to digital solutions, such as livestreamed interviews, to showcase their events and products.
      Trendgruppen’s aim was for the Design TV broadcasts to share its design news with the media as well as architects, interior decorators and a design-interested audience.
      “The fair was closed, and we couldn’t arrange any press meetings or VIP cocktails – like we usually do – due to the pandemic,” Trendgruppen CEO Karin Sköldberg said.
      “The design companies had news to introduce, and we wanted to do something attractive, digital.”

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      Though she thinks virtual talks will replace real-life conferences to some extent, Sköldberg still believes physical meetings will remain important.
      “There will still be live meetings and conferences,” she said. “We are humans and need to meet, and see each other. There is a lack of interaction when you only meet virtually.”
      Many other events have gone fully digital this year to reach people during the pandemic, including The World Around, while brands have also come up with innovative solutions – Tom Dixon’s eponymous founder attended Stockholm Design Week as a hologram.
      As part of Dezeen’s Virtual Design Festival, we livestreamed numerous Screentime interviews and events.
      Photography is by David Thunander.
      Trendgruppen Design TV took place during Stockholm Design Week on 8 February – 12 February. See Dezeen Events Guide for an up-to-date list of architecture and design events taking place around the world.

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      Asylum in Ratched designed to look like “a beautiful person with a really dark secret”

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      Production designer Judy Becker treated Lucia State Hospital like a character in its own right to ensure that the gruesome psychiatric institution takes centre stage in Netflix thriller Ratched.The asylum is rich with unexpected architectural details – undulating glass-block walls or vast panoramic windows hidden behind floor-to-ceiling curtains – that are begging to be noticed.
      This is a stark contrast to much of Becker’s Oscar-nominated work, in which sets generally act as backdrops that merely complement the characters and action on screen.
      “I haven’t done this often but in the case of Ratched, I really wanted the building to draw attention to itself as a character,” Becker told Dezeen. “It’s a bit of a misdirect when you see this gorgeous building and the well-dressed patients but then the most horrible things are happening in this place.”
      “It’s like a beautiful person that’s got a really dark secret,” she added.

      Above: Doctor Hanover’s office has panoramic windows. Top image: The hydrotherapy room has a glass-block wall

      The show tells the origin story of Mildred Ratched, the antagonist of Ken Kesey’s classic American novel One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest and head nurse at Salem State Hospital.
      But while the book and subsequent 1975 film adaptation depict their setting as a bleak, clinical place with whitewashed walls, Ratched’s Lucia State Hospital tells a very different story.

      The asylum’s lobby is an almost exact replica of that at Arrowhead Springs Hotel
      That’s because Ryan Murphy, the series’ creator who is known for spearheading hyper-stylised shows such as American Horror Story, Scream Queens and The Politician, wanted the set to look less like an institution and more like a fancy resort that had been converted into a hospital.
      “I threw away all my research on the grim asylums of the 1940s,” said Becker. “Sometimes it’s really warranted to do a very frightening-looking set design for a very frightening story. But the horror in Ratched is a little over the top, so you can balance it with all this beauty and that dichotomy works really well.”
      The show went on to become one of the most successful Netflix shows of the last year and was watched by 48 million people within the first month.
      Ratched’s set replicates a real grand hotel
      Set in northern California in 1947, the series follows young Mildred Ratched as she weasels her way into working at Lucia State Hospital.
      Through her story, the series explores some of the questionable approaches to mental healthcare at the time – from lobotomising patients by drilling a hole into their skull, to “curing” their homosexuality by locking them in a near-boiling bathtub in the name of hydrotherapy.

      Dorothy Draper often incorporated white stucco features and black and white checked flooring into her interiors
      To ground the show in reality despite its stylised depiction of these horrors, Becker originally planned to shoot on location at Arrowhead Springs Hotel near San Bernadino, California.
      Designed by Los Angeles architect Paul Williams in 1939, the complex features sprawling rooms and Hollywood Regency-style interiors by Dorothy Draper – one of the period’s most notable designers.

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      But the hotel’s owners refused to allow any filming to take place on-site, so Becker and her team ended up erecting a near replica of its interiors on the Fox Studio Lot in Los Angles.
      Over the course of three months, the team reproduced Draper’s trademark stucco features and checked, monochrome flooring, as well as entire rooms based photos and measurements.

      Lucia State Hospital’s exterior was filmed at the Gillette Ranch near Malibu
      The lobby with its thick columns and chandelier reflected in the lacquered, black flooring was replicated almost entirely, while the inbuilt hexagonal shelves and sinuous fireplace mantel Draper designed for the hotel lounge were transposed into the patients’ recreational area (below).
      “It was a huge set,” explained Becker. “It looks like one place on screen but we had to build it over two different sound stages, which are these big hangars. There were so many rooms and so many elements and we would keep adding new ones as new episodes got filmed,” she continued.
      “Finally, there was no more space to build anything and we had to move the paint shop and some of the little dressing rooms outside to make more space because we just needed every inch of it.”
      “I like to work with a very deliberate colour palette”
      Since the set had to be furnished from the ground up, Becker worked with decorator Matthew Ferguson to source real period pieces from the time. To fill the huge rooms, these were bought in multiples where possible or otherwise, matching pieces were fabricated from scratch.
      “Everything was custom upholstered. I tend to do that because I like to work with a very deliberate colour palette and it’s impossible to find exactly what you need just lying around,” said Becker.

      The patients’ lounge features inbuilt shelves and a sinuous fireplace inspired by Draper’s interiors
      Green is perhaps the most prominent colour in the show and features liberally throughout the asylum, as well as in the cliffside motel where Mildred Ratched makes her temporary home while working at the hospital.
      “Green is a great colour because it’s very period-correct of the late 40s. And it can be a very unsettling colour or a pleasant one, depending on the shade,” said Becker.
      “If you use a green with more yellow in it, it tends to feel anxiety-inducing while one with blue undertones is more relaxing and makes you think of swimming pools.”
      Each shade that made it into the final show was painstakingly tested on different furniture pieces and in various lighting conditions, to ensure that it was conveying the right effect.

      Each patient’s room features different floral wallpaper
      Becker also added warm hues of coral and peach to keep the hospital feeling inviting and deceptively “non-horrific”, while the tiled floors and walls were held in neutral black and white so as not to clash with the costumes.
      “I think if you had green walls and green nurses uniforms and this and that, it just would have just been too much,” said Becker. “It probably would have won an Oscar if it was eligible because too much design tends to.”
      Fake foliage and curtains made windows look real
      According to Becker, perhaps the biggest downside to shooting on a set is the fact that the view out of the windows has to be created completely artificially.
      Often, directors will work with a Translight – a transparent polyester sheet that is printed with an image of the desired setting and lit from behind to create the appearance of a real exterior scene. But Murphy and Becker agreed that this fell short of the realism they were hoping to accomplish.
      “They pretty much always look fake,” she said. “Nothing is moving and the lighting doesn’t change like it would in real life.”

      Curtains and fake foliage created the impression of real windows
      Instead, she hid most of the windows behind semi-translucent curtains and set up a veritable greenhouse of real and fake plants on the other side to create the appearance of foliage.
      “We had someone on set tweaking them to camera so that the shadows and reflections looked real and not always the same,” Becker remembered.
      “There were fans blowing on the foliage and fans blowing on the curtains, so it was a very elaborate process to get the light coming through the window to look appropriate on camera. I designated an art director to be in charge of just this process because it was so important to Ryan.”
      All images are courtesy of Netflix.

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      Creating sets for Normal People took a mixture of intuition and second-hand gems says production designer

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      Using second-hand finds to create “clinical but tasteful” spaces reflective of protagonist Marianne Sheridan’s family life drove the set design of hit series Normal People, says production designer Lucy van Lonkhuyzen.Van Lonkhuyzen aimed to create a sense of realism when designing the show, which is set in the small, fictional town of Carricklea in Sligo, Ireland and later in Dublin.
      Making the sets look “lived-in” was one of Van Lonkhuyzen’s main objectives in production design, which she achieved by sourcing all props and details second-hand, from online marketplace Gumtree as well as charity, antique and vintage shops.
      “Finding these things is completely down to chance,” the designer told Dezeen. “That’s why I hoard!”
      “I hate to work with anything new,” she continued. “So I didn’t want to go to any big, major furniture places. I don’t do it and I never will.”
      “I wanted every set to be unique, and for the viewer to see that character in that set. I wanted everything on screen to look the best it possibly could be without looking like a set.”

      Top image and above: The Sheridan house in Sligo. Images by Suzie Lavelle.
      The 12-part production, which first aired in the UK in April 2020, is an adaptation of the best-selling book Normal People by Sally Rooney.

      Along with finding the right props from second-hand sources, the main challenge for Van Lonkhuyzen was forming the sets from the limited visual prompts in Rooney’s original narrative.
      “From a location perspective, Sally Rooney isn’t very descriptive in her books – she lets you kind of do the thinking on it. So it was really tricky,” she said.
      Cold colour palettes emulate Marianne’s family life
      The drama series follows the turbulent relationship between Marianne Sheridan and Connell Waldron – played by Daisy Edgar-Jones and Paul Mescal – as they grow from teenagers to adults.
      Both the novel and TV series centre around Marianne’s complicated home life. Her father, who is deceased, is revealed to have been a domestic abuser, while her brother Alan is portrayed to carry many of the same traits, and is abusive to Marianne throughout the series.

      Connell’s bedroom in Sligo. Image by Suzie Lavelle.
      Van Lonkhuyzen wanted the sets to feed into this difficult dynamic. The Sheridan household is a large country-style estate featuring a “sedatory” interior colour palette of muted blue and grey tones.
      “I wanted the character of Marianne’s mother to be reflected in her [family] house,” Van Lonkhuyzen told Dezeen. “[Denise] is a solicitor who was born in Dublin but now lives in Sligo. She’s not a nice character, but she has taste.”
      “So, inherently, I wanted the Sheridan household to be quite cold, but yet there’s still little pockets of taste in there,” she continued.
      “By doing that, we literally didn’t buy anything new; everything was from auctions or from Gumtree. I didn’t want the house to look like anything else.”
      “If people notice that [the set] was designed… I haven’t done my job”
      The subdued colour palette provides the backdrop for tasteful pieces of art and furniture that Van Lonkhuyzen imagines to have been inherited from parents and grandparents, which she used to convey a sense of controlled sophistication.
      “It’s even in the way the house is laid out – she’d be quite progressive putting the kitchen in the front room, but yet she still has her traditional dining room across the hallway,” said the designer.

      Marianne’s bedroom in Sligo. Image by Suzie Lavelle.
      According to Van Lonkhuyzen, it was important to contrast Marianne’s cold, and at times dark, upbringing to the love-filled relationship that fellow protagonist Connell has with his mother, Lorraine, who works as a cleaner for the wealthy Sheridan family.
      The two characters live in a terraced house in the suburbs, which features warm tones and walls covered with worn wallpaper that is dotted with framed photographs of the mother and son.
      “Lorraine, even though she’s a single mom and money is tight, she has pride in her house,” said Van Lonkhuyzen. “So I wanted to give her a bit of design as well – the kind that didn’t jump out at you, but where everything just blended in.”
      “I’m not talking about colours or palettes here, I’m talking about look,” she continued. “Because, for me, if people notice that it was designed… well then I haven’t done my job.”
      “With shoots like Normal People, your first instinct needs to be right”
      The process of creating realistic sets was made easier by working with the location manager Eoin Holohan, who also happens to be Van Lonkhuyzen’s husband.
      “Locations are so important in anything like this. But also it was mainly just intuition. As soon as you step into place, you think, yeah, this is right,” she said.

      The kitchen in Marianne’s university house in Dublin. Image by Suzie Lavelle.
      “With shoots like Normal People you don’t really have time to think; your first instinct needs to be right, and if it’s not then you’re in trouble,” she continued.
      “I was lucky in that, instinctively, myself and my team got it correct eight or nine times out of 10. Once the Sheridan house was nailed, it made everything a lot easier because you had a basis to work from.”

      Marianne’s Wellington Road house. Image by Lucy van Lonkhuyzen.
      Later in the series, Marianne and Connell leave Sligo to attend university at Trinity College Dublin.
      For Marianne’s university accommodation, which is located on Wellington Road, Van Lonkhuyzen wanted to bring in some of the same design elements seen in her mother’s home, but with a more vibrant and less constrained touch.
      Marianne’s university flat reflects her freedom from hometown
      While the set conveys her new-found independence and freedom that was granted by moving out of her family home, it still shows that she hasn’t quite been able to let go of the style that formed her, said the designer.
      “She’s come from such a cold and clinical, but tasteful, environment, so I wanted to bring a sense of warmth and security into Wellington road.”
      This was formed with the help of colourful, “bourgeois-style” furniture and “much looser” artworks than was seen in the Sheridan home, which hang on pistachio green walls alongside shelves full of random objects and trinkets.

      The living room in Marianne’s Wellington Road house. Image by Lucy van Lonkhuyzen.
      While Marianne’s family home and Wellington road flat were filmed in-situ, other settings were built from scratch in a studio to better host some of the show’s more intimate sex scenes. This included Connell’s bedroom at his family home in Sligo.
      “Connell’s [family] house was tiny, and the bedroom was even smaller. So because of the nature of the scenes, it made complete sense to put it into a studio,” explained van Lonkhuyzen.
      “We built it so we could have a slightly bigger space that was better for camera angles and lighting and privacy, in order to get the right atmosphere for the scene that they needed to get.”

      Connell’s bedroom in Sligo. Image by Lucy van Lonkhuyzen.
      This room was one that Van Lonkhuyzen worried about the most, she explained, as it was important to make it effortlessly seem like any other ordinary bedroom belonging to a boy in his late-teens.
      The room is characterised by its messy, mismatched bedding and posters taped to the wall, which Van Lonkhuyzen confesses she “hates for various reasons”. However, she still managed to get one of her favourite pieces in – a simple yellow and red lamp from the 1980s, found in a nearby charity shop.
      “I was petrified of getting it wrong,” she said. “But then two women with sons in their late teens visited the set one day, and said ‘oh my god this looks exactly like my boy’s bedroom!’, so it turned out perfect.”

      Dressing scenes for Killing Eve was “like finding treasure” says set decorator

      Normal People was first released in the UK online on BBC Three on 26 April 2020, before premiering on RTÉ One in Ireland on 28 April and in the US on Hulu on 29 April. The full series is available to watch on BBC iPlayer.
      Images courtesy of Suzie Lavelle and Lucy van Lonkhuyzen.

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