It's been a fairly uneventful week, so I thought I'd just post a couple of designs from the past year. Here's another version of my "Garden Bench", the combination bench and planter.
The GARDEN BENCH IIThe previous version has a CMU base, while this base is a custom cast concrete. More original, but of course more work, and therefore more time consuming and more expensive. I suppose the key word is "more". I should've put plants in this rendering.
The IDEA STATIONInspired by the freestanding classroom chalkboard. This one has various shelving, cubbys, and storage on the sides for plans or other long things. One side is chalk, the other side (not pictured) is dry erase with a foot of cork on each side to pin inspirational photos or other sketches. Despite my frequent laptop use, I'm still a big proponent of analog design. I have yet to build one of these things, but I look forward to having a couple of these for my co-workers and I to roll around our workshop.
Although I do very little metal work, and no upholstery, it often appears in my designs. Not much to say about this one. I would point out the inspiration, because I think it's fun to know how a persons ideas tie into things historically. Unfortunately, as a struggling and unknown designer my insecurities keep me from revealing things that I feel might give a more well funded designer a (table) leg up.
ASDF ShelvesA mix of wood and modular shelving brackets. My typical combination of organic shapes and materials (the wood part) with uniform industrial parts (the metal brackets).
This is a good representation of one of my personal design goals: To create a cohesive blend of nature and industrialized elements. I think it's important to recognize the natural beauty and balance of organic materials, and at the same time, starting with The Wheel, Man has created some pretty bad-ass stuff. Good job, Man!
In unrelated news, I saved a tree this week. I dropped by my condo on Thursday to find that a pretty decent sized palm near my door had been removed by the gardeners. Although I was sad to see it gone, it did seem like it had overgrown it's space. Then I saw the whole thing, roots intact, in a pile of branches in the parking lot. I immediately called my sister-in-law, Suzy, who loves tropical plants. I ended up putting the roots in a garbage bag with palm fertilizer, and taking it to her house and replanting it. As I loaded it into the back of the station wagon (I was worried the wind would beat it up in the back of my pickup), I thot of the fantastic scene in Harold and Maude when Maude saves the tree.
