21 November 2008

Concrete done right

As a tie-in to my hot lead on new sinks from Web Urbanist this week, I came across a sink they'd highlighted that stopped me in my tracks. Here's the sink in question.


It's gorgeous and unlike anything I've ever seen before. I have a thing for maps, the more technical and topographic the better. And that sink reminds me of the contour lines on an orienteering map like this.


It's part orienteering map and part nautical chart and all breathtaking. Here's an overhead shot of that same sink. Ahhhhh.


I followed the link on Web Urbanist back to the source for these beauties and found myself on the website, Gore Design Co. Gore Design Group is a Tempe, Arizona-based purveyor of fine concrete, according to their website. They are also artists who heed the call of a different muse and I find their philosophy to be intoxicating. From their website:
2004 – who we were:
A raw, unconverted industrial space. A few years’ worth of savings and a bunch of credit cards. One guy who’s decided he wants his own design company. Who believes in sustainable design, who knows he wants to work in concrete. Who knows this is absolutely what he wants to do and who knows he has absolutely very little idea how to do it – how this is supposed to work, what comes next, how, exactly, one runs his own design company.

2008 – who we are:
A full-blown green design studio. Fewer credit cards. One guy plus a small creative team who’ve decided this is where they want to be. We’re a little off-kilter. We like caffeine. We were damaged by soul-draining corporate jobs. We’ve recovered. We wear shorts and T-shirts to work. We eat a lot of sandwiches. We recycle. We make beautiful, functional art. We’re believers in change. There’s little that we don’t see within our reach. We love what we do. We know we can do more, and we will...
Man, what's not to love? I see a lot done with concrete --sinks, counters, floors and the like. Most of it's really heavy-handed and ungainly. Until I wandered onto Gore Design Company's website, I have never seen something made from concrete that could be called graceful. That's exactly what these sculptural sinks are though. The very poetry embodied in the buttes and washes of the American Southwest has been breathed into these forms.


Wow. Once again, their website: Gore Design Group. Spend some time looking over their portfolio and tell them I said hello.

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