Museums don't always have the luxury of sprawling storage rooms. Sometimes, the art outgrows the backroom. Sometimes, the backroom doesn't exist at all. That was the challenge at the Bo Bartlett Center, a gallery and teaching space housed inside a renovated cotton mill at Columbus State University.
With limited floor space but soaring ceilings, the team needed a creative storage solution that was functional, efficient, and, true to Bo Bartlett's legacy, visually striking.
Enter visible storage for museums: a strategy that turns storage into part of the story. With custom art racks mounted on high walls and a manual-assist mobile system at its core, Patterson Pope helped the Center store oversized artwork in a way that made the most of every vertical inch. And yes, it took a bit of vision to get there.
Creating Space for a Changing Collection
The Bo Bartlett Center is proof that visible storage can be both practical and transformational. Located in a former cotton mill on the banks of the Chattahoochee River, the space was reimagined as both a gallery and a learning lab for Columbus State University's College of the Arts.
From the beginning, flexibility was key. In early planning conversations, then-Executive Director David Houston described the vision as a celebration of great art in a constantly evolving format. "Those eight paintings have a permanent home here," he said of the founding Scarborough collection, "but most of the art in the building will circulate in and out. It's a changing exhibition space that doesn't have a large permanent collection."
With oversized artwork, a rotating lineup of exhibitions, and limited floor space, the team turned to architect Tom Kundig and his kinetic design sensibilities to help shape a space that could adapt, visually and functionally, to the needs of artists, students, and visitors alike.
Vertical Thinking in a Tight Footprint
Fitting a museum-grade visible storage solution into just 518 square feet isn't easy, especially when the art includes towering 16-foot canvases and the building offers no architectural drawings to reference. That was the puzzle facing the Bo Bartlett Center team as they worked to implement a visible storage strategy inside a second-floor space of a 1960s-era cotton mill.
The team began by bringing in a structural engineer to analyze floor load capacity. Once the green light was given, the real opportunity emerged: take full advantage of the 23-foot ceilings and turn vertical space into functional storage.
Wall-mounted art racks were installed high along the perimeter to hold oversized works, keeping them protected yet accessible. At the center of the room, a manual-assist high-density system created five compact aisles of interactive storage. Four carriages move to reveal one fixed aisle, each measuring 20 feet long by 10 feet deep. Together, they transformed a narrow room into a dynamic and efficient storage environment.
Laying the rails required two inches of new concrete poured over the existing slab. To ensure proper bonding, the original floor was scarred to add pores — just one of the many thoughtful construction details that made the system possible.
"We had many conversations about how we could maximize the relatively small footprint," said Houston. "One of the things I really appreciated was Patterson Pope's ingenuity."
A man-aboard lift was also added, offering easy access to both the upper racks and lighting, which was essential for managing and interacting with stored work.
A Storage System that Moves With the Art
By design, the Bo Bartlett Center's storage room was always going to be full. Art comes in, art goes out. "There is never enough room," said Houston. "The art moves in and out, and that's kind of the model we're following here." But that challenge is also the story. In a facility where function blends seamlessly with design, visible storage supports the art while becoming part of the experience.
One standout feature is the Center's use of interactive storage elements, most notably the custom-designed movable walls. An affinity for kinetic design shines through in these 17-foot-tall, 31-foot-wide panels. Each wall weighs over 5,000 pounds, yet can be moved by a single person, reconfiguring the space from gallery to classroom to meeting space and back again. Behind one of these walls sits the vertical storage system, safely housing both permanent works and incoming exhibitions.
"Having worked with many different companies through the years, one of the things I really appreciate about Patterson Pope is the turnkey nature of their work," said Houston. "The ability to fabricate on a very custom level gave us the ability to adapt to a very difficult space. Having space-saving units gave us the capacity we needed in a relatively small footprint."
"It allowed us to store both our permanent pieces (which are few) and then bring the changing exhibitions in and out, keep them safely off the floor and locked away out of the public view," he added.
Art takes time. Art takes vision. And sometimes, art takes a little extra visible storage and a movable wall.
To learn more about this project, check out our case study or contact a representative from Patterson Pope today.
