BKNYdesign

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CAKE

This project was conceived as a book and developed from a focused sketching study that incorporated live models, found objects, transfers, reproductions, text, manipulated Polaroid photographs, cloth and string.  The project examined the various elements within a master drawing as found in the city and as mocked up in the studio.  Drawings were done on paper sacks, vellum, deconstructed photographs, watercolor paper, pages of pulp novels and clear acetate.  The final composition is layers of drawings separated by wool felt dividers in a plaster box, cast in colored layers and lined with a finely striped pink and brown satin.  The box is capped with a plaster lid into which brown ribbons have been cast and tied as one might wrap a gift.  The drawings address issues of memory, desire, separation, ritual, commemoration and making.  This piece was exhibited in a specially constructed room in the Member’s Gallery at the Architectural Association in London.

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BLOOM Public Art Installation 2004 Atlantic Base Garage, Seattle

This 5-story public art project was derived from a Fibonacci series. It was conceived by artist Susan Soccola and fabricated by Decorative Metal Arts. I was part of the team responsible for the fabrication, finishing and installation of the piece. It is composed of powder coated aluminum flat bar, fiberglass and electric lights.

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BLURRED Architectural Possibilities August 3 - September 13 2002 COCA, Seattle

The title of this project is “Mock-Up.” It was done in collaboration with SHED Design Build. Over the course of a day, plaster was poured in courses between a form and an existing L-shaped wall. Once the plaster had set the ‘new wall’ was rotated 180 degrees to enclose a room between it and the existing wall. The plaster was then sawn into panels from the inside of the room. The panels were passed over the top of the wall until the room had vanished. I documented the entire process in photographs which were mounted above the stacked plaster slabs to tell the story.

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GRAPHIC

BKNYdesign has completed over one hundred publications in addition to marketing materials and event collateral while under contract with Egon Zehnder, a leading international executive search firm.

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hidden poem seeded heart valentine

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bear & rabbit valentine

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BKNYdesign

Operating as a design studio and workshop, BKNYdesign develops and prototypes products, and produces custom furniture, objects, and environments.  All work is handcrafted and dedicated to longevity and cultural relevance through careful attention to materials, processes, and meaningful use.

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V-LUXE

V-luxe was the springboard project for BKNYdesign.  Following its initial conception as a birthday gift it became a Kickstarter campaign in October 2010.  The campaign was successfully funded  in December 2010 and the BKNYdesign workshop was launched.  V-luxe was shown at ICFF in the spring of 2011 and gained a considerable following both on the web and in print.  It was featured in a New York Times article about Kickstarter’s relationship with designers as well as an Upgrade article in Popular Mechanics.  It has appeared in stories and video pieces on numerous design and technology websites including Apartment Therapy, Dornob, Gizmodo, Asylum, MTV, NBC’s Syfy, and Dvice.  It was featured in the inaugural issue of Cloud magazine and the April 2012 issue of French GQ.  

V-luxe is an accessory stand for iPad that takes its inspiration from the Philco Predicta television sets of the late 1950s.  It is handcrafted of solid wood and features a book-matched speaker compartment, swivel and tilt adjustments, and a hand shaped iPad housing lined with FilzFelt.

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PURL SOHO

Purl Soho was completed in April 2010, combining what was formerly Purl and Purl Patchwork on Sullivan Street in Manhattan into a single retail space on Broome Street.  Brooklyn Design & Fabrication, in collaboration with Architect Nick Robertson, built all of the cabinetry and fixtures and completed the entire build-out and installation.  Cabinetry was fabricated from ash plywood finished with a grey wash and protected with beeswax.  The store consists of a central retail space, a storage mezzanine, a classroom, an office, wrapping and supply rooms, a restroom, and a large display area in the front window.  In addition to being part of the fabrication team, I was responsible for site measurements and digital model as well as all shop drawings, material take-offs, and coordination of both fabrication and installation.  

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MINIMAISON

Minimaison is a 17 m2 flat in the 4e arrondissement of Paris, centrally located between Les Halles and Le Centre Pompidou.  When the current owners purchased it, the flat had a separate room for the toilet but the shower and bathroom sink spilled into the general living area.  The kitchen needed to be expanded and updated and the placement of the water heater created an awkward vertical jog in the countertop.  The owners wanted a proper bath and kitchen, wood flooring, more storage and new windows.  My design called for a separate bath enclosed by a wall with a clerestory of relights, a pocket door and new tile and fixtures throughout.  The kitchen was designed with bar seating to eliminate the need for extra dining furniture.  In addition to a new bank of drawers and cupboard the kitchen provided pantry storage as well as luggage storage beneath the bar.  

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EIGHT SIGHTED BOX

This structure was the result of an investigation of the relationship between objects and ideas. The project began as a study of phenomenology and sought an architectural response that addressed perception and imagination, the two modes of consciousness described by Jean-Paul Sartre in Psychology of Imagination (1935). It takes up Merleau-Ponty’s rendering of visibility, which is founded on the idea of the body as a sensible sentient. Because the body sees and can be seen it is caught up in the general visibility of what he calls “the flesh” of the world (la chair).

Eight Sighted Box is composed of a large interior room and a smaller exterior room. It employs Renaissance techniques to subvert the distinction between inside and outside. An array of 48 cast plaster cameras obscura is placed in front of the structure’s fully glazed west end. In the daylight a small screen inside each camera captures an image of the world outside and makes it appear inside the darkened boxes. The image can be seen through the viewing hole in the front of each camera. The long walls of the room are lined with dark felt that make the door indiscernible except when opened. The opposite short wall is faced in maple and has 5 brass-lined holes that offer views into boxes attached outside. The boxes vary in size but have the same proportions as the room from which they are viewed. They contain miniaturized versions of elements found elsewhere in the structure. The bottom-most hole offers a direct view out. The composition engages memory to heighten the awareness of an experience that oscillates between immediate and reflective. A large 2’ x 2’ Fresnel lens is mounted in the same wall and as day turns to night it projects an image of the room’s lit interior out onto a white curtain that encloses the exterior room. Camera obscura becomes camera lucida. Outside comes in and then inside goes out as the room traces the passage from day to night and back again.