DESIGNING VOYAGER'S BRIDGE
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After working for size years as production designer on [Star Trek: Deep Space 9] Richard James was employed on [Star Trek: Voyager] and given the assignment to create a new Star Trek starship from the inside out.

Richard James

Traditionally the design of all Federation starship interior sets has begun with the bridge, for it is most often the focal point of the action in an episode, and is the actual as well as symbolic command centre - this is where the captain's chair is located: when the captain is sitting in the chair everyone knows the ship is being commanded by that one woman or man. This is something the tv viewer not only relates to, but wants to relate to - the bridge is where the ship's "family", the crew, gather every week for their adventures, and there is a sense of particular security when the "head of the family", the captain, is present, especially when ship and crew are facing terrible danger. After decades of Star Trek, the bridge of a Federation starship is an instantly familiar place to almost any tv viewer in the world. Poe says that its visual impact is such that if you ask people how they feel when they look at a Star Trek bridge, most will say it makes them feel good; while I agree with this (though I would never have thought of asking people such a question), I think it is the result of numerous design factors including the logic of its design, a certain symmetry and its comfortable enclosed feel. None of this was lost on Richard James.

BRIDGES OF THE USS ENTERPRISE AS DESIGN PREDECESSORS TO VOYAGER'S BRIDGE 3D cutaway drawings from [The Cage] Enterprise (seen in Star Trek's very first pilot) to USS Enterprise NCC-1701-D and its battle bridge.

The design which Richard James needed to produce would be critiqued or approved at the highest level, by Rick Berman, the Executive Producer and the man to whom Gene Roddenberry had passed the burden of the Star Trek inheritance, charged with keeping faithful to Star Trek's/Roddenberry's concepts and ideals. Berman's continuing demand for quality was legendary and very reactive, with him examining people's ideas, sketches etc. and saying something like: "I'm not sure what I want, but I'll know when I see it, and this isn't it." Almost every person in every department in Voyager production has, at one time or another, experienced Berman's first-time reaction: "I hate it." His reaction is so common that quite a few offices have a sign on the wall with the simple declaration: "I Hate It." For his first meeting with the show's creators and producers, Richard James decided to push the boundaries of everything that had gone before e.g. did the bridge have to be dominated by a single large viewscreen? could command functions be de-centralised? was it time to break the traditional bridge mould? Richard James asked for concept sketches for Voyager's bridge from set designers, illustrators and scenic artists including Louise Dorton, Gary Speckman, Doug Drexler, John Chichester and Jim Martin. Some (like Chichester, Speckman and Dorton) were just finishing with [Star Trek: The Next Generatoin]. Others (like Drexler and Martin) were working on [Star Trek: Deep Space 9]. Because USS Voyager would be smaller, sleeker, and faster than the Enterprise-D, Richard James asked for designs that were more like a military ship. His basic instructions were to "look at everything. No concept is too far out." He remarks: "I just wanted to feel like we'd explored all avenues by the time we came up with the finished design. I wanted to feel a certain satisfaction that other avenues had been explored. We arrived at the 'look' we have for certain reasons, not just because it was the only thing we considered.....which it wasn't. We went through the gamut of ideas and concepts."

As part of the show's design team, Jim Martin created the preliminary bridge concept drawings below, following the direction of Richard James to question everything that had gone before in Star Trek bridge design. very wide viewscreen, bizarre-shaped consoles and sunken seating abandoning a main viewscreen at the front of the bridge one command chair one command chair Source of the above 4 pictures: AOST

 

Putting aside all preconceptions, Richard James examined exhaustively the dramatic requirements and technological underpinnings of the Star Trek bridge.

Richard James: "The whole idea was to explore all types of possibilities. I did a lot of concepts that were way out of line with what we typically been seeing, because I wanted to shake free of ideas that had been done before. So we did concepts that were unique in many ways. We explored the possibility of the bridge being simple a 360 degree space - there was nowhere that was forward and no place aft. And we tried more or less eliminating the idea of the viewscreen being a permanent thing. We talked about doing a viewscreen that would come into play only when they wanted it. After all, the viewscreen is just a monitor. The idea has evolved that it's kind of like a big windshield, and of course it isn't. So I want to kind of reinforce the fact that it was a monitor by having it just come and go."

However, the further afield he went, the more he confirmed that the designs "just weren't Star Trek", and thereby rediscovered the strengths of the basic template laid out by Matt Jefferies for [Star Trek: The Original Series] nearly thirty years earlier; for example, that a tv audience still relates to the main bridge viewscreen like a car windscreen - therefore the viewscreen has to be mounted on the chosen wall dead centre when aligned horizontally, and it will be the point of reference toward which all bridge personnel face. It was realised it was important to do this on [Star Trek: Voyager] even though, technically speaking, Voyager's bridge did not need a back and a front.

Richard James: "The executive producers - Rick Berman, Michael Piller and Jeri Taylor - felt it was better for the audience to feel the direction of travel. We wanted to keep the fact that it was travelling in mind, so it did have a forward and it did have an aft. It was decided rather early on that we would maintain that concept.
But we still wanted it to be different. We talked about the size. The ship is smaller than the Enterprise. But, as I pointed out to the producers, that doesn't necessarily mean that the areas have to be smaller. It's smaller overall, so there are fewer compartments needed for crew quarters. It's like if you had a 10-bedroomed house and you had a 2-bedroomed house. The kitchen could still be the same size for both of those houses, even though one house is smaller than the other. They said: 'Well, that's a good point,' so we did not try to make the sets smaller."

From the sketches below it can be seen how the final chosen design emerged.

it was eventually decided to have two command seats but the chairs are very sunken
Source ST:M

Occasionally Jim Martin would produce drawings showing how the bridge would look if a single area such as the conn station was changed. Here the sunken seating idea persists - in the conn station.
Source ST:M

The sketch above and the one below feature a rail on which is located the tactical station, similar to that of the Enterprise-D. Both sketches feature a much higher rear level than previously.

the handwriting reads: "lose floor level" then "move steps in back 2 step/stair" and "add extra stations in back"
Source ST:M

now Richard James and accordingly Jim Martin are experimenting with different rails and consoles behind the captain's position.
Source ST:M

The sketch above and the one below, if realised as sets, would have helped to make the bridge interesting but would have made life difficult for the cameras.

Richard James: "For a series, you have to remember that even though the design might be good, you have to consider whether or not it's easy to do it week after week after week for seven years. Logistically some of these were very difficult. It always makes it a little harder to shoot when you've got different levels and so forth, so that is a consideration. For a feature you can deal with that, but for a series you can't."

The issue of railings remained throughout.
Richard James: "[The producers] felt that the railing was too similar to the Enterprise and they didn't want that. To make it unique to Voyager we spent a great deal of time coming up with a new railing design. And then I created the railing in the forward section so that the captain could come up and actually hold onto it. That goes back to the ship designs where you have an upper deck the captain stands on - the poop deck, I guess it's called - and they look down across the ship. This kind of played off that as well."

[Year of Hell]

[#171 and #172 Endgame]

The position of the stations would have made easy access for the camera hard.
Source ST:M

This bridge was very close to the finished set - two command seats and boxed sections at the rear, but it was felt the tactical section was too similar to the Enterprise-D's, and conn and ops still sat next to one another in a well at the front of the bridge.
Source ST:M

Jim Martin also produced drawings showing the bridge from different angles. The two examples below show the view from behind the captain's chair, which was useful because possible camera angles could be seen in advance. Once production started, the directors would be putting the cameras all over the bridge.

These two sketches (which merge into one at the centre) show the view from behind the captain's chair.
Source ST:M

The decision to give the conn officer a single station at the front was a major breathrough. This drawing shows the consoles to one side, but it was finally moved to the centre, and the ops officer was put in a boxed console to the captain's left.
Source ST:M

Fortunately, the concept sketches for a starship bridge which Richard James liked the best, namely for a bridge obviously different and more advanced in appearance and more innovative, were the ones that Rick Berman approved. The bridge was to have a layered look, starting from the back of the bridge, and then tiered downwards in three levels to the conn position in front of the main viewscreen, and all main officers i.e. captain, first officer, tactical/security officer, ops officer and conn officer face the viewscreen. This design gives the bridge a new type of dimension, making it unique for a Federation starship, and thus desirably setting it apart from previous Star Trek series. At the same time, it is instantly recognisable as a Star Trek starship bridge, thereby maintaining the familiarity which fans love.