Watching the Wheels

To conclude my posts on the BKLYN DESIGNS show, here are a couple new items from one of my favorite companies, Site Specific Design.  They were in my second year's coverage of the show and they're a really nice group of people.

Their series of Childhood Memories pieces are a lot of fun, many of them based on bugs, and I was really impressed by this new one, "Nephila":

I'd seen the newsletter about it, and actually thought it might be a free-standing piece.  At the show I saw that it hangs on the wall, and only the top portion is solid metal tubes.  From the squiggly metal tubes dangle a bunch of power cables that spaghetti around on the floor.  (Yes, I know "spaghetti" isn't a verb).  All of them have plugs or sockets at the end of them, but of course only one of them is live.

This table is a brand new piece they debuted at the show:

Click that.  They found these ENORMOUS antique drill press wheels by accident on ebay and were inspired by them to make this table.  The designer, I believe it was Rui Docouto, was explaining to me that they originally thought to strip the paint off them, but then realized that they had this really amazing rough golden hue to them, so they left them as is.  The great thing about this piece is that it has a very rustic, industrial kind of aesthetic to it, but if you look at the wooden tabletop, it's uncommonly thin.  It gives the piece a real sort of delicacy.  I thought it was lovely.  I also hope they're able to find more drill press wheels (or similar) so they can offer more pieces along these lines.

Marketing Director Nahid Rupani also told me about some plans concerning Brooklyn's design community in general that I was very impressed and excited about, but I'm not sure if that's a matter of public record just yet, so I'll leave you in suspense on that one.

Site Specific Design

718-486-6341

Also...

--Photo Hans Werlemann

This video of Rem Koolhaas' Maison á Bordeaux is absolutely breathtaking.  Go watch it.

©2008, Ryan Witte