The Brooklyn Chamber of Commerce wouldn’t be able to attract an audience for a “Brooklyn Manufacturing Expo” outside of their own staff so every year they host the BKLYN DESIGNS exhibition. Walking around the exhibition though you are struck by how design, and by extension designers, drive manufacturing. With the collapse of manufacturing in the United States over the last few decades it’s hard to fathom just how many jobs we had in Brooklyn making things. All of the work was not only designed here in Brooklyn but as a matter pragmatism, most of it is made here.

Here are a few of my favorite things.

Tree table and stool by April Hanna

April Hannah gets the chutzpah award. She’s an artist who three months ago when she applied for a booth, saw a need, had an idea, and a couple of cardboard models. Twelve weeks later, her Tree Table Collection is debuting here. The collection, shown with a few of her artworks, as a sort of visual DNA, is smart, cohesive, well crafted (thanks in part to a brother who according to Hannah “can make anything”),and built with kids and the environment in mind.

Jeff Mayer’s bench and growing family

Jeff Mayer’s 718 Made in Brooklyn is “form follows environment”. His design and manufacturing is a direct outgrowth of his lifestyle and Brooklyn aesthetic. He’s a former professional bmx racer, a lifelong skateboarder, and denizen of the public transportation system. All of these things come through in the objects, clothing, and furniture he designs and manufactures.

Christina Fesmire’s Fugle Swing

Pratt Institute seeks to instill in all graduates aesthetic judgment, professional knowledge, collaborative skills, and technical expertise. Their booth there was evidence of a promise fulfilled. The quality of the designs and the execution did not suffer by comparison with their professional counterparts by any means. I was particularly taken by Tobin Spann’s spare, simple, beautifully executed Surface Series furniture. My other favorite work was Christina Fesmire’s Fugle Swing. Both of those students have bright futures ahead of them as long as we can get this economy moving again.

50″ long x 14″wide x 18″tall; $1200 by special order at kirbyjones.com

I was browsing This Old  House and the above piece caught my eye since I’ve been getting more requests for work made from reclaimed lumber. M. Fine in Brooklyn is my local source for old, nice pieces. Most of their wood is old growth southern pine, but I found a piece of  spalted oak in their yard and used it as a table top on steel legs. Kirby Jones, is the the designer and fabricator of the above piece. His work can be seen at  www.kirbyjones.com.  His series made from reclaimed wood is spectacular.

Dan Phillips’s “tree house” made from recycled material. He built and rents it to low-income artists in Huntsville, Texas.

This interesting story appeared in the NY Times today about Dan Phillips, a Texan who makes homes out of salvaged homes for low income buyers.

Kate Murphy writes:
AMONG the traditional brick and clapboard structures that line the streets of this sleepy East Texas town, 70 miles north of Houston, a few houses stand out: their roofs are made of license plates, and their windows of crystal platters.

They are the creations of Dan Phillips, 64, who has had an astonishingly varied life, working as an intelligence officer in the Army, a college dance instructor, an antiques dealer and a syndicated cryptogram puzzle maker. About 12 years ago, Mr. Phillips began his latest career: building low-income housing out of trash.

In 1997 Mr. Phillips mortgaged his house to start his construction company, Phoenix Commotion. “Look at kids playing with blocks,” he said. “I think it’s in everyone’s DNA to want to be a builder.” Moreover, he said, he was disturbed by the irony of landfills choked with building materials and yet a lack of affordable housing.

To him, almost anything discarded and durable is potential building material. Standing in one of his houses and pointing to a colorful, zigzag-patterned ceiling he made out of thousands of picture frame corners, Mr. Phillips said, “A frame shop was getting rid of old samples, and I was there waiting.”

So far, he has built 14 homes in Huntsville, which is his hometown, on lots either purchased or received as a donation. A self-taught carpenter, electrician and plumber, Mr. Phillips said 80 percent of the materials are salvaged from other construction projects, hauled out of trash heaps or just picked up from the side of the road. “You can’t defy the laws of physics or building codes,” he said, “but beyond that, the possibilities are endless.”

While the homes are intended for low-income individuals, some of the original buyers could not hold on to them. To Mr. Phillips’s disappointment, half of the homes he has built have been lost to foreclosure — the payments ranged from $99 to $300 a month.

Some of those people simply disappeared, leaving the properties distressingly dirty and in disrepair. “You can put someone in a new home but you can’t give them a new mindset,” Mr. Phillips said.

Although the homes have resold quickly to more-affluent buyers, Mr. Phillips remains fervently committed to his vision of building for low-income people. “I think mobile homes are a blight on the planet,” he said. “Attractive, affordable housing is possible and I’m out to prove it.”

Freed by necessity from what he calls the “tyranny of the two-by-four and four-by-eight,” common sizes for studs and sheets of plywood, respectively, Mr. Phillips makes use of end cuts discarded by other builders — he nails them together into sturdy and visually interesting grids. He also makes use of mismatched bricks, shards of ceramic tiles, shattered mirrors, bottle butts, wine corks, old DVDs and even bones from nearby cattle yards.

“It doesn’t matter if you don’t have a complete set of anything because repetition creates pattern, repetition creates pattern, repetition creates pattern,” said Mr. Phillips, who is slight and sinewy with a long gray ponytail and bushy mustache. He grips the armrests of his chair when he talks as if his latent energy might otherwise catapult him out of his seat.

Phoenix Commotion homes meet local building codes and Mr. Phillips frequently consults with professional engineers, electricians and plumbers to make sure his designs, layouts and workmanship are sound. Marsha Phillips, his wife of 40 years and a former high school art teacher, vets his plans for aesthetics.

“He doesn’t have to redo things often,” said Robert McCaffety, a local master electrician who occasionally inspects Mr. Phillips’s wiring. “He does everything in a very neat and well thought-out manner.” Describing Huntsville as a “fairly conservative town,” Mr. McCaffety said, “There are people who think his houses are pretty whacked out but, by and large, people support what he does and think it’s beneficial to the community.”

Click here for the rest of the article. and check out the multimedia presentation here.

Visit Dan Phillips’ Phoenix Commotion, where you can donate to his cause, and here’s a video on his business:

]]> http://www.brooklynmodern.com/ny-timescom-mans-trash/feed/ 2 http://www.brooklynmodern.com/brooklyn-green-builder/ http://www.brooklynmodern.com/brooklyn-green-builder/#comments Thu, 30 Jul 2009 14:33:12 +0000 brooklynmodern http://www.brooklynmodern.com/?p=2380

Gennaro Brooks-Church of Eco Brooklyn installing a solar tube in a Brooklyn brownstone.
Check out the amount of light coming through even on an overcast day.

If you’re interested in green building in Brooklyn, I would suggest subscribing to  Eco Brooklyn Inc’s posts. Gennaro Brooks-Church, is the author and he is a Brooklyn based contractor, Certified EcoBroker®, LEED AP, educator, lifetime builder and author of the Build It Forward green building concept. Hence, the information comes from a reliable source. Since I’ve been following the site, I’ve learned about the importance of insulation and how it’s easy to install, working with salvaged wood, good business models for green building, and raising chickens.

Gennaro also goes beyond his site to promote green building in Brooklyn.  In a radio interview on Burning Down the House (click to hear, section:  Popular Recycled Materials in NYC), he discusses the value of reclaimed lumber and talks about my favorite source for salvaged wood in Brooklyn,  M. Fine Lumber. (click here to read old post on M. Fine)

In addition, Eco Brooklyn is looking for a  a space to keep their salvaged materials. If anyone knows of a place to rent, sale or donation in the Carroll Gardens or Red Hook area, get in touch with Eco Brooklyn.

Moe builds his furniture from resawn hardwood beams salvaged from dismantled buildings across the country – barns, warehouses, old mills – any of the approximately billion board feet of wood that is removed from buildings in the U.S. every year. “Each beam has a story and carries its history in its grain,” says Moe. “By reusing this material we reduce the impact on our landfills, eliminate the need to harvest trees, and are reminded of the simple beauty inherent in old wood.”

Andrew Moe, by the way, is the son of Richard Moe, president of the National Trust for Historic Preservation.  The plank doesn’t fall far from the barn.

This year Moe introduced Oslo, his first collection of 12 pieces. Cleanly designed with a minimalist purity and reasonably priced, the furniture received a lot of praise at ICFF 09. East coast ash, an indigenous hardwood, is the primary species, though others are available, and each piece is crafted by hand. Modern in design, Moe builds his furniture using traditional wood shaping techniques and joinery. He uses some non-toxic glue and his finishes are a water-based polycrylic.

Click to visit Studio Moe

Beginning in 2009 Studio MOE will donate 3% of its annual profits to The Alliance for International Reforestation (AIR), a non-profit organization which plants trees, establishes tree nurseries, and works with local communities in Guatemala and Nicaragua to help restore the health of the land. Since 1993 they have planted over 3 million trees.

by Daniel Sommer, Contributor

To many, trailer parks conjure images of poverty and undesirable living conditions. Brooklyn artist Kim Holleman challenges these misconceptions in Trailer Park, part of the Bushwick Biennial on view now at NutureArt Gallery. In the piece, Holleman turned the inside of a former camper into a live and growing public park. BrooklynModern recently caught up with Holleman inside her trailer and spoke with her about her work.

“I lived in a trailer when I was a young child, and I could always see to the other side of it. I always knew where my parents were, it was very cozy, it was very enclosed, it was a perfect oasis, and enclosed bubble…When we moved out of the trailer into our gigantic house, everything went awry. (This upbringing) give me the insight other people aren’t going to have.”

Holleman used her construction and fabricating background to turn a trailer into a fertile oasis, challenging ones expectation of what the object holds within. Replanting the trailer every spring, the plants themselves are found objects. Each one was found growing in Brooklyn and was transferred to the custom designed planting beds.

Also on view, Kim Holleman’s The View is a theoretical core sample of what the ground we live on has become. The hanging glass case contains a mini ecosystem, complete with living plants and bugs, but also toxins and pollutants. Over the life of the piece, the ecosystem has begun purifying the toxins and regaining control over the toxins.

The Bushwick Biennial includes shows throughout Brooklyn. Information can be found at www.bushwickbiennial.com

For more information on NUTUREart, see www.nurtureart.org.

Giramundo Swivel Chair, Recycled Multicolored Yarn

A couple of weeks ago, Time ran an article on how DiCaprio, Julia Roberts and the set designers from ABC’s Ugly Betty are buyers of Environment, a furniture store known for their minimalist lines and eco edge. Environment, is an interesting company because they’ve managed to successfully merge and market the concepts of high end and sustainability. They have two showrooms in California and one near Union Square that’s worth a visit. Like the chair above, most of their products are made from sustainable materials. One of their sofas has been upholstered with canvas from Brazilian truck tops and many of the tables are made from reclaimed Peroba harvested from derelict houses, barns and buildings in Paraná, Brazil.

Marison Dining Table, Paroba, Natural Finish

Organica, Enviornment’s publication. Learn about the company and its mission.
Click here to read.

This document focuses on their commitment to sustainability. Click here to read.

Environment
876 Broadway
New York, NY 10003
t 212-780-0051 f 212-780-0061
Mon-Sat 10-7 Sun 11-6
nyshowroom@environmentfurniture.com

Here’s the 1970’s wood paneling. Remember Calvin Klein shoots back in 2000.

Assembled and finished. Perhaps 4hrs of labor.

]]> http://www.brooklynmodern.com/upcycling-wood-paneling-for-tv/feed/ 0 http://www.brooklynmodern.com/ag-merch-launch-party-tonight/ http://www.brooklynmodern.com/ag-merch-launch-party-tonight/#comments Mon, 18 May 2009 13:45:20 +0000 Brooklyn Modern http://brooklynmodern.com/?p=1492

Williamsburg’s A&G Merch is celebrating the launch of its A&G Mart, a section of the store that features the work of local artisans. Future Perfect’s David Alhadeff, is behind the concept of this store. Party is 6-10pm @ 111 North 6th.