Yellowmove

Yellow Trolley

The yellow trollies are key to how our teams operate in the gallery and the opportunity to re-think the design was not only a chance to make some physical modifications but also an opportunity to reconsider how we use them and make positive changes to our working practice. The trollies are used for the majority of picture movements, rehangs and exhibitions so the primary aims of my design were to increase the capacity for carrying multiple works, improve access throughout the gallery and to provide teams with the correct tools and fixings for each job.

The original design was very successful and the physical changes I made were relatively minor. I added a horizontal extension allowing us to transport larger paintings, slimmed the overall width of the trolley by 50mm to make it easier to pass through doorways, gave it radial corners to remove the sharp edges and increased the clearance around the wheels allowing us to fit brakes. The trolley itself is made from aluminium rather than the original steel design with a 3mm steel deck replacing the 18mm ply and weighting the bottom to ensure stability and provide the necessary weight for the vibration dampening function of the wheels. For the overall structure I reduced the distance between the two outer uprights which both increases the ability to stack paintings side by side but also increases the central space on the deck for items that need to travel flat.

Working across a large site such as the National Gallery one key issue is ensuring that teams have the right tools and hardware ready to hand for each job. We try to minimise the equipment carried by individual technicians and so the majority of our fixings, screws and tooling are kept in the two drawers of each yellow trolley. Maintaining stock and making sure everything goes back in the right place can be difficult during busy periods and a regular frustration for our teams is tracking back and forth across the gallery in search of missing items. For the new trolley I have designed a removable insert for the fixings drawer. The intention is to provide two inserts for each trolley with fixings specific to the the two different hanging systems we work with; either hanging from chains or screwing fixings directly into the wall. Through the act of collecting the right drawer insert for each job I am hoping that the process of acknowledging the contents and stock before setting off will become automatic, thereby reducing the frustration of finding items missing. The inserts also double as a tool box that can be removed for easy access during installs and to be restocked at the end of each day.

Alongside the project of designing the trolley we also repurposed a small existing storage area to function as a tooling station and essentially a garage for the trolleys to be stored in. This area has become key to the function fo the new trolley design and intended usage, it puts all of the stock, tooling and resources in one place and the layout is arranged specifically around ease of access with a work bench for storing and stocking the drawer inserts. Providing a space for the trolleys to be returned to at the end of each day and collected from every morning may seem incredibly simple but working across such a large site with multiple picture stores and two tooling areas represents a subtle but fundamental change to how we think about the trolleys and how we use them on a daily basis.

Tom Hemming

Team Supervisor