A blue mouse desk in the city. this was my show piece that went to Carmen Fanzone in Brooklyn after the show.

Bike meets ICFF 2011: 44steel, geekhouse bike + mint

At ICFF last year I spotted MIO's flat pack bike basket... and during my first (quick) visit to ICFF 2011 yesterday I (naturally) gravitated to thegeekhouse custom built bike on display...

The bike hanger is by Cleveland-based Jason Radcliffe of Forty Four Steel and is one minimal and elegant fixture.  Jason's design keeps a bicycle hung vertically by simply resting the front wheel into the top of the frame -- similar to (but more visually appealing) then theLeonardo rack I'm fond. This is his first prototype and there are plans for some minor revisions -- but the final will be available shortly and  will some in a variety of powder coated colours as well as the raw steel.

So nice seeing bikes represented at ICFF (International Contemporary Furniture Fair) since, after all, bikes make it into our home life for many of us!

Marty Walsh of Boston-based geekhouse bikes / Jason Radcliffe of Forty Four Steel

Standing out from others at the Javits Center this weekend was the furniture duo hailing from the rust belt land of Cleveland. Jason Radcliffe of Forty Four Steel partnered with Freddy Hill of Bomb Factory Furnitureto exhibit a few thought-provoking and well-crafted pieces. Jason works in metal and showcased his "Mouse" desk; Freddy works in wood and displayed an intricately-detailed cabinet.

"We have a huge 1200-square-foot space—our own workshop, freight elevator, and a bunch more all for $330 a month," said Freddy, which elicited gasps from those gathered around his booth (who were all clearly New Yorkers). They've been working on mostly customized pieces in the past, but want to branch out to a more mainstream market—which has been a challenge in Cleveland. "Yet despite those challenges, there's about 10-15 of us really making it and cultivating design, creativity, and collaborative spirit in the area."

Just finished a railing designed off of the style of Frank Lloyd Wright. Hard to see but speckle coated two different browns on the top coat to match the outdoor lighting.

Working on a large acid washed desk for a customer. Acid washed the top, then built the frame, and then attached the two. still needs to have the drawer put in. Plus it also has removable legs! It is going to be on some cool orange and gray caster as well.

Started work on the new Voodoo Monkey Tattoo shop here in Cleveland. Made some cool speaker boxes out of 8" pipe. they look and sound perfect in the space.

features

CABINET MADE BY A PIECE OF CLEVELAND - PHOTO BOB PERKOSKI

reduce, recycle, refurbish, repeat: how cle is becoming a leader in deconstruction

FRANK W. LEWISTHURSDAY, NOVEMBER 11, 2010

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DESIGN, ENTREPRENEURSHIP,SUSTAINABILITY

DETROIT SHOREWAY, MIDTOWN,UNIVERSITY CIRCLE

Jesse Hill is working quietly at his station, tucked away in a corner of the cluttered and bustling furniture design center at Cleveland Institute of Art, when Daniel Cuffaro approaches and asks Hill to show off his "magic box."

Roughly four feet by four feet, the box is constructed of wood. Some of the sides sport panels of fabric that resemble office-cubicle wallcovering. Hill wheels the box into an open area and begins taking it apart. Lifting the top off reveals a set of legs -- it's a small table. Next, he pulls out some planks that quickly assemble into a book shelf. What remains of the box now serves as a computer desk. The entire transformation, from nondescript box to personal office suite, takes about a minute.

As Hill reassembles the pieces, Cuffaro, head of the Industrial Design department at CIA, explains the backstory. The box is the result of a recent design project in which students were asked to create multi-function, easily stored pieces for various working, living and lounging spaces around campus.

Hill's box, Cuffaro notes, was constructed entirely out of wood salvaged from a condemned Cleveland house. So were many of the other desks, tables and chairs designed and built by CIA students, who more and more must be equally deft with both state-of-the-art design software and centuries-old lumber. In fact, today's design students are part of a broader experiment: an attempt to build a new industry out of the bones exposed by the foreclosure crisis.

Furniture making is taking off in Northeast Ohio. According to Cuffaro, there are roughly 400 furniture-related businesses in the region, and their work is getting noticed. The various lines produced by Jason Radcliffe's Forty Four Steel are selling well in New York. Designer Joe Ribic, owner of Willoughby-based Objeti, won the Editor's Award at this year's International Contemporary Furniture Fair in New York. The second annual Cleve-centric design showcase F*SHO, held this past September, attracted three times as many visitors as the first installment. Plans already are under way for additional events in advance of next year's show. Designers, builders and support organizations are finding each other, sharing resources and ideas, and making noise.

All that would be cool enough in a region better known for the industries it has lost. But there's much more to the story. In a spirit reminiscent of progressive outposts like Seattle, Cleveland is becoming a national leader in deconstruction, a movement that treats vacant homes across the region not as an eyesore but a post-natural resource.

"We don't want to be another New York," says P.J. Doran of A Piece of Cleveland. "We want to be Cleveland."

Civic pride is at the heart of APOC, the furniture company Doran, Chris Kious and Aaron Gogolin launched in 2008. Relying on expertise culled from years in housing -- Doran and Gogolin in construction, Kious in community development -- the team systematically dismantles condemned houses. Working from the roof down, they harvest every plank, joist, beam and floorboard that appears reusable. The rescued and resurfaced lumber is then crafted into tables and benches, cutting boards and candlesticks. Each piece comes with a "rebirth certificate," which details the source of that particular material.

That unique backstory is definitely a selling point, says Doran. He knows of items purchased as gifts specifically to ship to Cleveland exiles. Those rebirth certificates also send a subtle message: This is something Cleveland can do that New York cannot.

"There's such a wealth of materials here," says Michael McMillan of North End Woodworks and Furniture, located in the Detroit Shoreway neighborhood. At F*SHO, he says, a woman approached him to say that the wood in one of his pieces came from her old house in Cleveland Heights. 

Former professional musician Freddy Hill, owner of Bomb Factory Furniture, builds mostly high-end pieces out of walnut, but he says that Doran inspired him to add a line made from reclaimed wood. He recently acquired materials from a demolished bowling alley in Illinois, thanks to a tip from a friend who mentioned in passing that it was available. "You're definitely selling the story," he says. "This wood used to be somebody's roof, or somebody's front porch."

History is one reason the Cleveland Foundation is supporting deconstruction, but the future is a much larger factor. Lillian Kuri, program director for architecture, urban design and sustainable development, says the foundation has been funding and promoting "decon" for several years because of the sustainability element and the potential for job creation.

"We can decide that we're no longer going to dump 5,000 homes' worth of material into a landfill," Kuri explains. "It's about a continuum, and creating a whole new industry here." And that's where the Cleveland Institute of Art comes in. "CIA has stepped up in a tremendous way, saying, 'We should be part of the solution.'"

Here's how the ambitious plan will work: CIA is building new classroom and studio facilities on Euclid Avenue, in University Circle. Studio furniture for the facility will be designed by students and built by APOC out of reclaimed wood. Cleveland Foundation is offering financial support, says Cuffaro, with the intent of jump-starting a new local industry. If a fledgling operation like APOC can scale up to meet the needs of a large client like CIA, then the possibilities are endless. "Cleveland's version of Ikea," is how Doran puts it. "Great design for the masses" that is also affordable.

Deconstructing a house costs more than demolishing it, Cuffaro explains -- about $12,000 per house versus $8,000 to level it and haul it away. But decon employs more workers, sends less waste to landfills, and saves money for those who utilize salvaged materials.

"There's no such thing as waste," Doran says, "just resources mismanaged."

Working on some removable legs for a bar height desk. came out real good and can not wait to see it all assembled!

Here are some tables and benches i did for Sprouts in Oberlin. they are the first to get me new Cafe table with easy level legs. Also all the tops are plyboo by Freddy Hill of Bomb Factory Furniture. Also did there sign.

This was designed by David Maison of wolf maison architects. all steel with hanging planter boxes. Added one of the best patio's to bonnies in Farivew

Working with Cleveland Public Art and the new Ohio City Farm to build a couple of structures out of old shipping containers. one is going to be an office and the other is going to be a pop open farm stand. Just got a few more parts on yesterday and will be finishing and painting in the next couple of weeks.

These are a couple of nesting tables I did for whole foods over the summer. Acid wash steel with reclaimed barn wood flooring for the top.

I work at a snowboard shop in the winter just to keep up with it. They have been remodeling the store and I did a real simple railing for the ramp and step between rooms.

New store in Columbus opened over the weekend. Made there cash wrap, four display tables, and there street sign. Very cool store and there is four cleveland designers with items in the store!

This is the new dessert drink and Cheese cart for the Greenhouse Tavern on east 4th. Steel construction with a Stainless Steel top and handle, and the shelves are reclaimed wood.

Furniture maker Jason Radcliffe's designs are inspired by Cleveland's rust-belt beauty

By Andrea Simakis, The Plain Dealer

October 27, 2009, 5:36PM

Photographs by John Kuntz / The Plain DealerDealerJason Radcliffe, owner of 44 Steel, at work on a drafting table. Forty-four was his number when he played high school basketball for Rocky River, and it just stuck. "All that light? It'll burn you -- you gotta be at least five feet away for it not to burn you," he says.

The ambassador of the Cleveland furniture design scene is as tall and lanky as a young Lincoln and sports intricate, richly colored tattoos up and down his long arms.

He's crazy about snowboarding and his girlfriend, Natalie, the artist responsible for his Technicolor sleeves.

And Jason Radcliffe loves steel -- the way it melts away like butter when he touches a MIG welder to it, the unexpected dark rainbow patterns in its coating.

His workshop is inside Berrington Pumps & Systems, an industrial process equipment company in Avon owned by his family. That's where he learned to admire the hard, smooth lines of Cleveland's vital metal and to weld.

He talks about his influences -- the old industrial buildings in the Flats, famed designer Viktor Schreckengost, 18th- and early 19th-century Industrial Revolution-era machinery -- as he takes a break from fashioning a drafting table that will be on view at F*SHO, an exhibition next month in Cleveland of Radcliffe's steel furniture and the work of four other industrial designers.

"The five of us came together and said, 'We need to do something in Cleveland showing Cleveland design, because we are somebody,' " Radcliffe says. "And Cleveland should know what's going on here and what we're doing."

Radcliffe and his partners -- John Arthur, Louis Erste, Michael McMillin and Grant Smrekar -- also want to show the tastemakers on the coasts that Cleveland is more than a flyover city. It's a destination point on the contemporary-design map.

"We want to show Cleveland has a bunch of people that know what they're doing -- not just New York or L.A. -- Cleveland's just as good as anywhere else," Radcliffe says.

In an e-mail, McMillin is slightly more blunt: "There are a lot of talented designers in Cleveland and I think it's time people knew that instead of buying from national chains and big-box stores."

The talents in F*SHO are young -- all are in their 30s, born or raised in Ohio and now call Cleveland home. They hold other jobs to pay the rent, as bartenders, carpenters and general contractors. Radcliffe still builds oil tanks and other equipment in the family warehouse. Smrekar works there with him part time.

Their clean, simple pieces -- whether it be a stool made of recycled bicycle parts or a credenza fashioned from hemlock -- rely heavily on salvaged industrial detritus or reclaimed wood.

The Cleveland design style "is industry driven," Jason Radcliffe says (here marking the spots where he will attach hinges on his steel drafting table). "We're all industrial designers and we just want to see that hard, clean, smooth look ,which is Cleveland."

Arthur explains: "I'm very interested in taking construction debris and repurposing it into functional pieces of art, as opposed to taking up more space in the local landfill." In a loft he renovated on Cleveland's West Side, Arthur made a bathroom sink from an old steel shopping cart he found abandoned in the building.

Radcliffe pulls his hoodie around his head so sparks don't fly into his ears or dance down his shirt and begins to weld a steel frame, the white glow from his arc a little exploding star.

Inspiration is everywhere. The heavy wood floor of a barn in Sandusky from the 1890s becomes the top of one of Radcliffe's coffee tables; steel from an old fence found at a shop on Lorain Road is transformed into an elaborate staircase snaking through La Strada on East Fourth Street downtown. Radcliffe is especially fond of the hulking 100-year-old presses still waiting to rumble to life in shuttered warehouses dotting the city's landscape.

Cleveland's infernal rust-belt beauty is the creative engine that fuels Radcliffe's brand, 44 Steel.

"Some people go into one of those old factories and say, 'Oh, it's dirty, gross -- it smells weird here!' Doesn't bother me. I'm like, 'Look at that! Someone built that machine 100-and-some-years ago and it's better than what could ever be built today.' "

Radcliffe's enthusiasm for all things local is infectious, even on the road. In May, he showed his Mouse Desk -- a sleek piece with a drilled mouse-hole pull that, when tugged, opens a hidden, stainless steel drawer -- at the International Contemporary Furniture Fair in New York City. The monster, four-day showcase in spring boasted more than 500 exhibitors representing 34 countries.

He hung a sign on a wall -- 44 Steel by Jason Radcliffe, Cleveland, Ohio -- and people stared.

Cleveland???? they asked.

"Yeah," Radcliffe answered.

"Is there really a design scene in Cleveland?"

"Well, yeah," he said, ever polite, "there is."

His East Coast debut paid off. Since then, Radcliffe has sold 15 Mouse Desks retailing at $1,155 apiece, and has orders for five more.

Still, though Radcliffe's signature piece is in homes and showrooms across the country, it has yet to make it into a Northeast Ohio den or office.

Jason Radcliffe showed this piece, the Mouse Desk, at New York City's prestigious International Contemporary Furniture Fair. He originally dubbed it "the Vik" as an homage to hometown, internationally known industrial designer Viktor Schreckengost until he figured out that nobody got it.

"As of right now, no one in Cleveland owns one, which I think is sorta bad, you know?" he says. "My two biggest customers are in New York City and Houston."

Radcliffe hopes F*SHO will convince area interior designers, architects and retailers that buying local is buying smart.

"I'm hoping people will see it's easier to have this stuff locally done than order this expensive piece from Italy that takes six months to get and costs thousands of dollars," he says.

He does have a client in Mentor, a woman who found a vanity by a high-end designer in a magazine and loved it but balked at the $3,000 price tag.

"I'd made her a mirror before, so she talked about it with me and I said, 'Yeah, we can do [something like that].' "

Right here in her own back yard.

Lots of Bats! These are a bunch of bats for a display at this years Boo at the Zoo.

Here is what all those parts look like all put together. This is my new desk. do not have a name for it yet but I am working on it. Nice and big with plenty of space to work. Plus it might have some secret feature to come later. I will be showing this design here in Cleveland at F * SHO on the 6th of November.

Here are the pieces for a new desk that will be premiering at the upcoming F * SHO here in cleveland. They are for a 60 x 30 x 42" tall drafting table. The frame on this one is going to be made out of 3" square tube! Is going to be on casters and have some moving parts as well.

Just got this picture from Ruth at Found for the Home in Houston TX. This is a mouse table the is 72" x 36" x 30" tall that is being used for a design home that Arron Rambo put together. It is going to be in an upcoming paper in Houston.

I delivered the first piece for the upcoming F * SHO here in Cleveland. it is going to be Friday November 6th at the new 1300 / third gallery at 1300 78th in cleveland. It is going to be from 7:00 to 11:00 and there is going to be five designs there. This is my coffee table for the all of us room that is being photographed today for the flyer for the show. it is 48" x 48" x 16" tall the frame is 4" square tube and the wood is barn flooring from a barn in Sandusky from the 1890's.

I just finished a double drawer Mouse desk going to Found for the home in Houston. The size is a 60" x 36" x 30 tall with two drawers.

Natalie and I have been working late fof the last two nights getting the Bela Dubby show hung. Check out a couple preview pictures and hope to see you there Friday night!

Natalie and I are almost set for the bela dubby show on Friday night

We got most of it hung last night and we are going to do the finishing touches tonight.

hope to see you all there Friday night!

Have a bunch more things for Cookie and a Cupcake in Tremont!

Here is another pic of some items for the Bella Dubby show next Friday night

Having a joint show with Natalie Roelle from Voodoo Monkey Tattoo next month at Bella Dubby in Lakewood. We came up with some fun ideas and can not wait to do the install on this coming Tuesday.

Speaking of shows also getting ready for F * sho on the 6th of November at the 1300third gallery in Cleveland. Will have some preview shots soon!