ReadyMade: Instructions for everyday life

Last Friday, we were able to arrange a little excursion from ReadyMade’s New York office over to DUMBO, Brooklyn, for a press event and the opening of BKLYN DESIGNS.

The 7-year-old expo of furniture, lighting and home accessories drew 41 exhibitors whose wares are designed and/or built in Brooklyn. It’s become a preamble to the even bigger design circus that takes place in New York City the following weekend: the ICFF (International Contemporary Furniture Fair), happening May 16 to 19 in the Jacob K. Javits Convention Center.

The ICFF will have 550 exhibitors, and is open to the public for one day only, Tuesday the 19th. The Fair’s planners estimate that it will draw 25,000 people. Later on, we’ll hear from seasoned ICFF veteran Scott Newlin, a designer at Karim Rashid’s office and the blogger behind Dudes in Suits about what he’s most excited to see at the Fair–and how to survive if you’re going.

The scene at BKLYN DESIGNS on Friday morning was somewhat calmer. Brooklyn borough president Marty Markowitz addressed the assembled journos at the press breakfast, calling Brooklyn the creative capital of the U.S. (which sounds like the throwing down of a gauntlet, if you ask me).

After the jump, a sampling of pictures from the event.

Boa of Object Interiors models one of her creations, a chaise covered in gray felt made from recycled plastics, with rustic legs made from reclaimed timber.

At TMRNYC’s booth, end tables from the metal fabricator’s “Side Wired” series. The steel furniture includes functional North American power plugs to manage the cords in which we are all constantly tangled. Slits in the glass top of the desk in the series (just for show; they also do wood) provide a tidy escape route for computer, printer, and phone cords, which can be wound around hardware mounted underneath the desk.

ReadyMade editor-in-chief Andrew Wagner chats with Katie Deedy of Grow House Grow! Her “narrative” wallpapers are inspired by the stories of infamous historical figures: occultist Aleister Crowley; Captain Edward John Smith, who piloted the Titanic to its fate; and wild-West outlaw Cattle Kate. The designs are fabricated upstate by a couple who screen prints in a former bowling alley, creating long rolls of wallpaper on the erstwhile lanes.

I didn’t spy Takeshi Miyakawa hanging out around his booth, but I loved his work: here, a huge shelving unit of floating cubbies, made out of simple plywood and assembled together into something worthy of a modernist Dr. Seuss. We also spied Brooklyn-based ceramist Pamela Sunday, at right. Unfortunately, her work wasn’t there, but she’s still one of our favorite Brooklyn designers.

Tom Winter Architects casts custom concrete bricks and mounts a small light bulb in the center of each to form the modular C-Light wall. The bricks can be combined, in Winter’s words, to “shape space at any scale.”

Tom Winter’s C-Light wall from the back.

Pratt Institute was a sponsor of BKLYN DESIGNS and they had their own booth at the event, featuring student work. Some of the most striking things at the show were here; the students seemed to be doing a great job creating simple, elegant objects out of common and inexpensive materials. Above, Thomas Stern’s swoopy chaise lounge, built of tubular steel and nylon webbing sourced from Bally Ribbon Mills in Connecticut, which also provides materials for Knoll’s iconic Risom chair.

Andrew Wagner looking busy, with a coat rack from Pratt student Jason Pfaeffle’s Array series. The collection features furniture made from a single cast component, combined with wooden dowels; there was a stool on hand, too.

Pratt student Dana de Vega with Grind, a salt and pepper mill inspired by the motion of twisting. The handles are made of standard boiler drain valves.

It was a great warm-up to the weekend of designs and parties ahead. As borough president Markowitz might say: First Brooklyn, then the world!