Sterling Ruby: Stretching the Canvas Sterling Ruby combines art and fashion with his close friend Raf Simons. Kanye West: Free Form How the musician, fashion designer, and artist plans to make the world a better place. First Look: Jean Nouvel’s Monad Terrace Pritzker Prize winner Jean Nouvel breaks new ground in Miami Beach. How It’s Made: Emeco Emeco’s Navy Collection is a symbol of American design with military roots. A Day in the Life of Yigal Azrouël, Shot on a Leica TL The fashion designer documents his life in New York City with a Leica TL digital camera as he... Chanel’s Show of Hands The artisans at Paris’s most revered fashion house produce its haute couture collections one...The fifth installment of a series about the launch of a local coffee shop and roastery. Read all of the From the Ground Up stories Harrison Suarez measures, Michael Haft cuts. The Compass Coffee duo, surrounded by workers in the soon-to-open coffee shop and roastery in Shaw, are slicing a two-by-two-inch steel beam that will become the legs of a table.
If you thought they were merely boasting about being hands-on entrepreneurs before, here's the evidence: They're building much of their business's furniture by hand. Because the shop's $129,000 Loring coffee roaster was such a big expense, Haft and Suarez had to cut other costs to stay on budget. They’re pretty good with tools from their days as Marines, and Haft has a crafty background: woodworking and welding were his hobbies in high school and college. They realized they could save money by DIYing as much as possible, from the steel-and-concrete coffee counter, to the wood tables, to the art on the walls. While they relish even the less-glamorous parts of their business -- like visiting a paper-goods warehouse, which we'll address in the next installment -- building furniture is among their most edifying tasks. "We come here in the morning, we drink coffee, and we make something that somebody is gonna use for years to come," Suarez said. They began with cafe tables made out of oak, their favorite wood.
But the ante was upped when Haft and Suarez decided to weld the shop's angled coffee counter, workspace and steel shelving. Haft used to work out of a wood shop in Rockville, but he recently switched to the brand-new TechShop, which opened in April. The 21,000-square-foot Crystal City shop is the newest outpost of the Silicon Valley company, which provides tools and workspace for welders, woodworkers, computer scientists and other fabricators. When Haft and Suarez led this reporter through TechShop's rooms of expensive machinery and high-tech tools, it was like watching two kids in a toy store, except all of the toys are sharp and require signing a liability waiver. Suarez: "It's like a gym for creating things." Haft: "It's the coolest thing ever. Any tool you could possibly need is there." Suarez: "In one corner, there will be like, a $100,00 machine, and in another corner, there will be another $100,000 machine." Because TechShop is partially funded by the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, the former Marines were eligible for free membership.
And once members take a safety class for any particular tool in the shop -- from 3D printers to waterjet cutters -- they're allowed unlimited usage if they provide their own materials. Haft and Suarez ordered 2,000 pounds of steel, cut it to size, and welded the framework of a four-piece counter last week. On Tuesday, they made another small table for practice, so that they can try concrete molding on a less critical piece of furniture before having to perfect it on the countertops. "Espresso machines are heavy," Suarez said. "We need a strong framework for the [concrete] countertop, so it doesn't crack. Haft and Suarez aren't building all of the furniture themselves. For some items, they decided it made more sense to buy, rather than build. That's where Kedra Cornelske of Design Within Reach comes in. Cornelske works for DWR's contract and hospitality division, helping architects and interior designers select fixtures and furniture for their spaces. Haft and Suarez approached her because they had a specific chair in mind -- the Emeco Navy chair, which they prized not only for its sturdiness and classic design, but its military backstory.
The aluminum chair had been designed for military use in 1944, and was standard on submarines, but was recently updated in a warmer recycled white plastic that matched the cafe setting better. "We went through a bunch of different options, but for [them], it was very important to have some history to the furniture," Cornelske said. They ordered 18 of them. While both Cornelske and the Compass duo declined to share their negotiated price, the chairs sell for $280 each on the Emeco website. They also ordered 20 French stackable metal Tolix stools, which normally retail for $180 each. They're pricey, but Compass decided it was worth it in the long run. "Durability and maintenance is so important because it's such a high-traffic area," Cornelske said. "You don't want to pick a piece where the cushions are going to have to be replaced. People don't really care about other people's property." Abuse is the foremost concern when it comes to choosing furniture for a restaurant. After all, if everything goes well, those seats will be supporting hundreds of behinds every week.
Developments in the design of domestic objects like the chair came to a standstill during World War II and in the period of material shortages immediately afterwards. Ingenious designers and manufacturers then harnessed the wartime advances in materials and production processes by the defence industry for consumer products. At the forefront of innovation were the US designers Charles and Ray Eames and their collaborators on the West Coast, helped by empathetic manufacturers such as Knoll and Hermann Miller. One of the best-selling chairs in North America, the Navy Chair was designed in 1944 specifically for use at sea by the US Navy by the Electric Machine and Equipment Company – known as Emeco – and the Alcoa aluminium group. Emeco’s founder, Wilson ‘Bud’ Dinges, was a master tool and die maker and a skilled engineer. He worked closely with Alcoa’s scientists and naval engineers to develop and test the Navy Chair. Having completed the design in 1944, Emeco put it into production at its manufacturing plant in Hanover, Pensylvania where the Navy Chair is still made today.
Each chair is constructed by a small number of skilled craftsmen, each of whom is entrusted with a designated task. Design: Charles and Ray Eames Moulded and bent birch-faced plywood, rubber. Production: Herman Miller, US. No sooner had the newly married Charles and Ray Eames (1907-1978 and 1912-1988) arrived in Los Angeles in 1941 than they began experimenting with plywood in their apartment using wood and glue which Charles smuggled out of the MGM production lot where he designed sets for films like Mrs Miniver. In 1945 they produced the DCW (Dining Chair Wood).and LCW (Lounge Chair Wood). Robust and comfortable, these chairs were designed for the expanding population of young families after World War II who needed light, compact, yet inexpensive furniture. The Eames made the DSW and LCW more comfortable to sit on for long periods by added a slight spring to the legs. Fibreglass, steel, rubber Production: Herman Miller, US Charles and Ray Eames (1907-1978 and 1912-1988) designed furniture to adapt to the owners’ changing needs.
A practical way of achieving this was to create a series of components – such as the seats, legs and bases of chairs – for easy assembly and disassembly. Typical were the moulded fibreglass seats and metal rod bases of interchangeable chairs such as the DAR (Dining Armchair Rod) and LAR (Lounge Armchair Rod), developed for the 1948 Low Cost Furniture Design Competition at the Museum of Modern Art, New York. Chrysler, the car maker, developed welded shock mounts to attach the fibreglass and, later, wire mesh seats to different bases, including Eiffel Tower-shaped legs and rockers for the RAR chairs given to Herman Miller employees when they had children. When the Eames went to the beach, they often sat on the sand in the fibreglass ‘bucket’ seats. At a time when the US government was keen to encourage US manufacturers to develop new types of furniture and household products for the expanding post-war population, the Museum of Modern Art in New York staged an International Competition for Low-Cost Design.