DESIGNING VOYAGER'S READY ROOM,
BRIEFING ROOM & MESSHALL

Sections below: introduction - scroll ready room briefing room messhall

Rooms such as the bridge, engineering, transporter room and sickbay, are buried deep inside the ship and thus do not really have to take into account the ship's exterior architecture. Rick Sternbach's design for Voyager's exterior dictated certain shapes for the ready room, briefing room, crew quarters and messhall. All of course have windows that look out into space. Richard James and his art department went to great trouble to ensure that the Voyager sets created the impression that this was a working ship, where everything had a logical place, as well as logically fitting the designed exterior architecture.

Richard James: "We co-ordinated the interiors with the exteriors, and we'd give locations to the sets: you have to in Star Trek! A lot of that's done for our own development, but it's also done because we have to look like we're thinking it through. And we do; we give a lot of thought to it. We certainly showed the architecture of the ship in rooms like the ready room, the briefing room, and messhall where the windows took the shape of the ship."

As with the other main sets, the locations were familiar from a design point of view, although the ready room was a relative newcomer being introduced in [Star Trek: The Next Generation]. As with the bridge and other main sets, the challenge was to produce a fresh design while making the room easily recognisable as a functional, Starfleet room. Unlike the bridge or engineering there were few design concerns as regards having to incorporate standard Star Trek technology (no warp core or viewscreen, say), apart from looking at replicator design afresh. For example, the furnishing of the ready room was down to commonsense as much as anything - the captain needed a desk, a computer console, a sitting area and a few personal ornaments, and they had to appear suitable both for the room's function and for the personality of the captain. And in considering the briefing room's design including its furniture, both the shows [Star Trek: The Original Series] and [Star Trek: The Next Generation] provided natural starting points - a conference table and a wall-mounted monitor display.

The briefing room and ready room have identical front walls, and the shape of the messhall makes it easy to locate it along the front of deck 2.

Sections below: ready room briefing room messhall

Below: concept sketch for the briefing room: whatever was decided for the shape of the windows, e.g. curvature, would have to be mirrored for the ready room, as the briefing room is on the port side of the ship/ship's bridge and the ready room is on the starboard side.

Source ST:M

source: web

Below: briefing room: the table was constructed so that sections of it could break away and be removed to allow the camera in to shoot certain angles.

Source ST:M

Below: items in the briefing room are kept wrapped in polythene protective covers when not in use.

Source ST:M

The messhall is a new design. It includes a galley, or kitchen of sorts, (first seen in [#5 Phage]), which Neelix uses to prepare 'real meals' as opposed to replicator meals. Actually, Alan Sims, the property master, does the cooking whenever a scene shows Neelix cooking or his preparations. Alan Sims cooks the food just off the set and brings it into the galley.

Below: the replicators were redesigned to give Voyager a unique look.

Source ST:M

Right: The starfield you see outside from inside the ship is actually a curtain - it is a deep black, ceiling-high cloth handsewn with sequins or studs and mounted on a track that curves around the outside of the standing sets. When Voyager is in motion the cloth moves along the track to create the twinkling effect of the stars. Below: the finished set This picture is a composite made by me from more than one screenshot, for VOYAGER WEBCAM

The starfield curtain outside the messhall set. Source Poe Picture of the messhall set