Sand Castle Video Cabinet and Play Tables

A Great artist once said "Castles made of sand fall in the sea, eventually". I say, not if they're carved from EPS and coated with an isocyanate polyurethane resin...and installed a fair enough distance from the ocean. Immediately upon the completion of the Dolphin Sofa for SFDS, I went to work on these sand castles. While the basic geometry of these pieces seemed simple enough, their textures demanded a lot of time and attention.

Once the basic shapes were assembled, and the television monitor was properly fitted, all 3 pieces required staggered block patterns. This represents a lot more work than many would guess. The patterns were first measured and drafted over the majority of the surfaces. In the case of the tables, all sides required detail, where as the video cabinet has a smooth back. The drafted patterns were then hot scored into the surfaces and all of the pieces were tied together and further textured with joint compound before hard coating and paint treatments were applied.

The play tables center spaces were filled with sand and sea shells and topped with glass and plexi. The video cabinet was not only fitted with a 52"monitor but an Xbox and other ancillary digital goodies. The sunglass on the far end of this shot sport double monitors (the shades were cut on the CNC machine, I merely glued the parts together and rounded the edges). All of the wonderful stools and beach ball chairs were designed and fabricated by SFDS. In the end an incredible childrens play space was created, one that will host and inspire much joy and laughter for many years to come.

I'd like to further thank Eric Winston and SFDS for providing me with and allowing my use of their images of the pieces installed in their intended environments. Every aspect of working with this fine studio was a pleasure and a privilege. I happily look forward to my next projects with them.

Dolphin Sofa

This first image is the Zbrush model rendered with Keyshot. The following 4 images show the 10"long Shapeways SLS 3d print. As you can see, it's a remarkably true to the model. It does however, have a bit of a tooth to it. Shapeways offers this material polished in a tumbler but, that process is reserved for print outs that are 200mm (about 7.5") or, less. 

 Sofas and couches come in all shapes and size but, this was a new one for me. I was contacted by Eric Winston, owner of SFDS, a fantastic, 15,000 square foot scene fabrication/design studio in the heart of Greenpoint Brooklyn. Eric needed among some other wonderful elements, a 10’ long, hand carved dolphin sofa for the Marriott Vacation Club in Newport Coast CA. I jumped at the chance. I’d been wanting to do a crazy sofa for as long as I could remember. I’ve done all sorts of crazy chairs, tables, cabinets and beds for as long as I’ve been sculpting but, in all of the that time, never a sofa. Eric cleared a huge room for me to sculpt it in. His excellent fabrication staff built a hotwire table for me from no more than one of my napkin sketches and boom, it began.

Half way into the carve, Eric's studio was visited by Mario Marsicano from Jellio. I've worked with Jellio on a number of interesting projects. I knew that Eric did projects with Jellio but, I didn't know that the sofa was one of them. There were so many diverse projects going on in the studio at the time, 2 major stage sets, a big job for instagram, giant wooden dinosaur assemblies, all sorts of different furniture designs, as far as I knew I was sculpting Eric and the Marriott. Finding out that this was for Jellio once my hands were already deeply into it was an additional bonus. For more with Jellio, click on the following links.
Gummi King
Ice Cream That You Can Sit On
King Kong

Eric's 5 year old angel, Ella.

 The above images show the sofa from various angles, carved, filled and ready for hard coating. The project progressed at a very fast rate due in largest part to my having figured out the sculpture in Zbrush. I have always done models in the past for larger sculpts. The luxury of doing models in Zbrush, as opposed to a more traditional clay approach is that you end up with a model that is not only more easily editable but, all of my build elevations were derived from it as well. The elevations were simply projected onto the block from different sides and the sculpture was immediately roughed out, top to bottom, side to side, front to back.

An astute eye may notice that the sofa against the grid only measures 9'. In order to increase the seating area, during the projection, the length of the sofa would be stretched to 10'. As a result, everything changed a bit but, all for the better. In a very long career, this was well worth the wait. In the wonderful world of fanciful furniture, this is an example as fabulously fun as you could hope to fathomably find.

Kid Couped In Kitchen, Sonia's Loft

                                                                                                                                                           

I enter my apartment through an 18 square foot alcove in the kitchen. As the door swings opened, it consumes half of it, leaving 9 square feet of usable space. I used that space for hanging coats and a couple of bicycles for me and Sonia but, I'd always felt that the space had the potential of being put to greater use. Sonia would end up taking a tumble on her bike in traffic. It scarred the hell out of me, filling my head with horrors of what could have been a scenario much worse than her sprained wrist. I didn't want the bikes anymore. That decision led me to the alcove's re-purposing.
 In measuring I realized that the alcove wasn't quite 6' but realized that neither was Sonia and as such, she would fit above the front door, thus taking back the 9 square feet taken when the door swings opened. The rest of the space would end up being taken up by 5 shelves and my dad's old foot locker from the second world war to which I'd fitted a set of rolling casters. The largest shelf would act as her desk to support her computer. Access to the loft
was provided by the creation of a contraption akin to a library ladder that when not in use would slide neatly between the refrigerator and her desk. The ladder itself is a simple construction of 2"x4"s, corner braces, chrome nosings and a couple of fixed rolling casters. I drilled 2 holes at the top of the ladder, through which I slid a length of electrical conduit that would be captured at either end by large screw eyes. When the ladder is rolled into its climbing position, it pulls with it a saffron colored Tibetan silk curtain to offer a modicum of privacy which in and of itself is a valuable commodity in a space that's so small. When Sonia first left home, I would take back her little office space and use it as a small work station for building and finishing small prototypes and use her loft as my guest bed room. When Sonia returned home, she got her loft back but, I've managed to keep the little work station for myself, which when not in use is simply hidden by a window shade.

Guitar Stand

Once upon a time, I bought a guitar believing that I might actually be able to learn how to play it. I didn't but, I was so enamored of it's shape that I was compelled to carve the  lively, funky stand seen in this photo. Years went by. A dear friend asked if I would like to give learning guitar a try once more. I jumped at his kind offer and became addicted. Learning guitar introduced me to multitudes of musicians and many aspects of my life have been forever transformed in the process. If it were not for this stand, carved at a time when I didn't know a note, my life would be very different.

Sofa/Work Bench/Storage

Finding a sofa that is not only just the right size but, one that does all that it has to above and beyond merely being comfortable, is easier said than done.

I needed a sofa that could seat 4 at the same height as the rest of my chairs (a guitar thing) and sleep 2 when the need arises. I had a tick over 6' to work with, meaning a sofa with arms was out of the question. I also was and always am in need of storage. Further, I didn't want the black shadowy dust trap that is comonly the big gap between the sofa and the floor. Lastly, sofa's tend to project further into the room than this room could afford. Every square inch of floor space is at an absolute premium. That meant that the back cushion would have to move as close to the wall as possible. In that I realized that if hinged, the sofa's back could serve as a work table. A mirror would solve my black gap issues, visually extending,the carpet beneath the sofa and in so doing, camoflage 12 cubic feet of storage.

Painted Floor

When I first saw the apartment, the floors were covered wall to wall with a brown high pile shag carpet that did not appear to have been shampooed in many a year. When the carpets were removed the acutely dilapidated, planked floor beneath it would be painted battle ship grey, as it had apparently been many times before the shag. As the apartment evolved and carpets were chosen, the grey began to represent a design void. It seemed dreadfully bland and incomplete and obviously the cheapest of all refinishing solutions. I decided to take the abstract geometric motif's of the carpets and apply them to the painted floor from one end of the apartment to the other. It not only tied the place together very nicely, it created a playful contrast between the saturated colors and their monochromatic counterparts. There's a bit of Tromp'e L'oeil to it. By varying the thicknesses of the black shapes, an illusion different shadow weights is created, suggesting a staggering of plane heights. the border around the living room carpet narrows at it's furthest end in order to force perspective and, in so doing, subliminally suggest that the room is longer than it actually is. There also seems to be a Wizard of Oz thing going on in the floors transition from black and white to full Technicolor and in the black and white, some 50 Shades of Grey. Over all, I might describe the floor as Modern Deco Fun House.