bius boutique

Allan sitting in the posture we developed together as he relaxes reading his newspaper.

I’m running a workshop Personal Spatial Design within artist Fritz Haeg’s exhibition, SOMETHING FOR EVERYONE. The exhibition is one of five new shows at The Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum, Ridgefield, Connecticut.

In the workshop I’ll encourage visitors to discuss how they want to feel when sitting within their own personal space while I measure and sketch a seating concept to support them. I’ll focus on creating a framework to provide comfort in a posture each visitor feels at ease in, setting aside issues of décor or taste.

The first workshop is tomorrow, July 10, and I’ll follow up with a second on September 12, both run from 12:00-1:30PM.

If visiting Ridgefield allow time to walk around the town. It’s a good place for cafes and icecream parlors, and our personal favorite is Ross’ Bread for fresh artisan breads and pastries. But the very best for us is just driving around the country roads, taking a left or right turn as we please. We make a day of it!

If you’re in driving distance I’d love to see you at the workshop!

Richard Slee. Yellow Trowel, 2007, Length 32 cm. Ceramic, enameled found metal, fabric.

I’ve been a fan of Richard Slee since the 1980’s. I’m drawn to his craftsmanship and the compositions he creates combining forms, materials and colours. But above all I get his humour. He makes me smile.

We’re lucky as we live with one of his trowels. Ours has a handle the colour of Heinz Tomato Soup (with a little milk added); the curved blade is enameled in a grey pattern that looks like water droplets and on the underside a layer of 2mm closed cell foam, to render it completely useless!

The Yellow Trowel is part of an ongoing series of remade tools in his current exhibition at the V&A Museum, London, ‘Richard Slee: From Utility to Futility’.

Naiad, 2009

I recently went to the opening of Wendell Castle’s exhibition, Rockin’, at Barry Friedman’s gallery in New York. Wendell presented stack-laminated wood chairs, painted or oiled, which he created within the last two years.

I fell for Naiad, a compact chair that’s bliss to sit in. To bius, ensuring a chair is comfortable is easy; it’s an essential issue to resolve in the design process. Wendell emphasis is on more sculptural aspects so he was mildly surprised to hear me so enthusiastic.

The smooth surface allowed me to move around naturally when talking to people. I found the height and rake of the seat perfectly snug. When I used the arm my posture opened up and it allowed me to be relaxed and confident at the same time: the chair made me feel good.

You can see more on the Wendell Castle and Barry Friedman Ltd websites and the exhibition itself runs through June 26. Go if you can!

Zsa Zsa by the fireside

We’re excited to tell you our second collection of ottomans was launched on biusboutique this morning. This brings the number of ottomans in our boutique to six, and there’s plenty of room for growth. The first collection is available in limited editions while the new ottomans are available in an abundant unlimited supply! Whatever the supply they’re all made-to-order, handcrafted with great care and attention to detail.

You can see more at www.biusboutique.com.In addition to creating ottomans for biusboutique we design exuberant bespoke furniture, which we make in-house, and we license more sedate designs to manufacturers. We’re currently working with the development team at Tuohy, a mid-west company, on the design of a chair for launch at NeoCon next month.

You’ll see examples of our furniture from each end of this spectrum on designbius.com. To keep up with our news you can become a fan of biusboutique on Facebook, or return here every two weeks, or so.

We hope you enjoy the new ottomans. We’d love to know what you think, either click on Comment below, or email (mail at biusboutique dot com).

Detail of Landers

Life isn’t going to plan this week. We aren’t ready to launch our second collection, as we’d to give other commitments priority. The sky isn’t falling in, though I thought it would.

The photo above gives a hint of what’s to come.

To see the new collection you can check on our website, biusboutique.com, in ten days, or so. Or if you’d like to receive notification of it, please click on Comment below and leave us your email address.

Pinning brown prototype

Pinning gray prototype

Muslin toile

We’ve finished the three ottomans for our second collection. We’ll photograph them next week and update the website, ready for launch on April 30.

You can glimpse some development and final construction above.

Our first collection was constructed using a variety of complex techniques we developed especially. This second collection is firmly within conventional garment construction and simply requires expert craftsmanship.

We’ve worked in high quality felted wool again, though this time we’ve chosen the soft supple wool we import from Verjans in Belgium. We’ve used this beautiful fabric since the mid nineties; you’ll see it in 90% of our upholstery on designbius.com. Our color choice is black & white, brown tones and blue tones.

Translating pattern ideas onto the body with colored threads.

Drawing in pencil over a muslin backdrop.

Drawing zipper position in pencil on first toile.

With a concept and design language in mind we briefly sketch ideas on paper. These quickly grow into something quite different as we translate the lines onto the body of each ottoman – we generally use colored thread to begin. As we’re working we look for powerful graphic patterns while keeping in mind the technical restrictions of the cloth – it only lets us do so much if we want to keep it flat. In this second collection the zipper is used as a feature in each ottoman.

‘Imagine you are driving (8)’, painted by Julian Opie, 1993.

‘Olive Babe’, The Duo Series, designed by Gunnel Sahlin, manufactured by Kosta Boda, 1999.

‘CH 4’, painted by László Moholy-Nagy, 1938.

Tulip pedestal tables and chairs, designed by Eero Saarinen, for Knoll International, 1956.

Spring/summer collection, designed by Narciso Rodriguez, 2005.

Like most designers we paper our studio walls with imagery that inspires us. Common themes in our current images are clear outlines, dynamic curves and blocks of color broken-up or framed by thick graphic lines.

Dante, zipper detail

We’ve been in the throes of developing our second collection to be launched at the end of April. The worst part is over – we now know what we’re doing! Over the next month I’ll show you the visual references that inspired and influenced us. We’ve been looking at garment construction, framing, panels, zips (ah, I’m in America, I should say zippers) and have referred to our own previous work, such as Dante for graphic character, Pool for it’s strong seam detailing and the Köln Collection for our use of zippers. The visual language is graphic, neat, tailored and pared back. The graphic character is gentle and soft through our choice of quiet colors. In this collection we’re exposing the ottoman legs to show you the beautiful frame.

In a fundraiser auction for the arts organization Site Projects, we are offering a studio tour with an opportunity to see a selection of our work followed by a gourmet vegetarian lunch, for the winning bidder and three friends. This will be in New Haven, Connecticut, on a Saturday in May.

The Site Projects auction is this evening.

You can place your bids here.