BSS, Design Ah!

4/5/2021

This new sofa, basically,

it’s born of a previous love, my original passion in the world of manufacturing and design - bicycle frame building. I obsessed over steel tube construction for years. Some of those years were very formative, developmentally. Constantly assembling and dismantling bicycle frames in my brain built permanent neural pathways; wide open, inviting superhighways of visualization and ideation specialized in all manners of connecting and controlling round building stock.

Various examples of bicycle joinery by Rene Herse, a french framebuilder whose craft and design skills hugely inspired me.

I have the option of designing in any form, with any material - but when I look to the middle distance and let my mind solve a problem how it sees fit, it’s tubes. The Basic Structure system uses notched joints with differently sized dowels to create useable furniture. The system is configurable, in that no special joinery methods need be applied for solving different problems, just different combinations of the same. The repetition of a single solution lends a simplicity to what is, ultimately, a very large number of visible parts.

I’m looking forward to applying Basic Structure to a variety of projects. Now, here, an early look at the first project - The Basic Structure Sofa, or as we’ve been calling it in the studio, Courtney Loveseat.

Design Ah!

A Japanese public television show that teaches kids about design, and how to cultivate a "design mind”. This show is perfect - it’s beautiful, intelligent and sounds incredible. There is very little spoken language in most episodes, with ideas being shared in visual manners. There is, however, amazing music, and the whole program has this rhythm that moves one along with it. It’s meditative, entrancing and I at times feel like it’s going to activate me for some kind of MKUltra-like government program. 10/10, big recommend. Watch here.