More great concrete from Gore Design

I wrote yesterday about the beautiful concrete sinks Gore Design Company designs and makes, and I have to admit that I'm really taken with them. I'm pretty smitten not only with the sinks, but the rest of the stuff Gore Design Company does too. The same studied awareness that attracted me to their sinks is written large all over their other offerings as well.

Here's a table in their showroom in Tempe. The table's called, appropriately enough, the Fern Table. It looks for all the world like something you'd come across during a hike in the back country. But only just enough to serve as a reminder of that hike. These guys know precisely when to pull back and whisper rather than shout.

Check out these detail shots from the same table.

Here's a counter from their studio. The gang at Gore seems to love cantilevers as much as I do. Note the lack of support of this counter. Cantilevers are a smart person's design element. Their use requires a thorough understanding of the laws of physics and there can never be enough physics appreciation, I say. Anyhow, here's that counter.

And here's a detail shot of it. You can see the same topographic map/ erosion effect that's in the sinks I was gushing about yesterday.

And speaking of cantilevers, check out this table.

As cool as that table is though, I think my favorite thing on their website has to be this lounge chair. And yep, it's made from concrete and wood. Astounding.

I could go on for days about the wonders in their portfolio, but rather than my babbling, head over there yourself. Once again, here's the link to Gore Design Company. One last thing though, I've been in touch with Brandon Gore (he put the Gore in Gore Design company) and he sent me some photos of some things they are working on now. Man. I'll be writing about these guys for a while and wait 'til you see what's in the works.

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.

GE has a bright idea

GE has a bright idea all right and a pretty helpful website when it comes to lighting design. If you go to GE Lighting's website, there's a hot link on the right side with the title Design with Light. That Design with Light section offers a wealth of practical ideas and applications of lighting design. Accurate and sensible approaches to lighting design from a consumer's perspective are next to impossible to find. From my perspective, I'm happy to see that there's a lot on that site for me to learn too. It's a win win and GE deserves some praise for getting this right.

So far as practicality goes, there's a section titled Mood Lighting. Mood Lighting takes a lighting goal for a room, explains how to go about achieving that goal and then recommends GE products to make it all happen. Unlike a lot of corporate how-to stuff on the web, this one's pretty transparent and they don't go overboard on the corporate BS. Check it out and learn how to make a room

Welcoming

Cozy

Creative

Peaceful

Motivated

Dramatic

Intimate

Pretty cool stuff if you ask me.

Pixar's architect lamp goes blind

This is hilarious! Kind of an interior design joke but funny funny never-the-less.

Sinks by Kanera, pure love in the form of a plumbing fixture

My pals over at Web Urbanist gave me a hot tip the other day. And the tip was this: sinks by Kanera. I mean, look at these things.

Even without any water in it, just looking at these sinks makes my blood pressure drop.

These sinks are designed and manufactured by the German company Kanera and here's Kanera's website. Web Urbanist highlighted them in a piece they ran about new directions in sink design. For the life of me I can't find any price information, but they're sure pretty.

Not something you're likely to run across at Home Depot any time soon, but isn't that the point?

As with anything new and exciting like this, what's always interesting to me is watching these kinds of innovations trickle their way through the market place. I doubt American Standard will be offering a knock off of this any time soon, but rest assured they'll start playing with free-form shapes in the next couple of years.

In the meantime, I'll keep looking at these babies.