Inhabitat

May 14, 2007

BKLYN DESIGNS 2007: Inhabitat Reports

Every year attending BKLYN Designs is one of my favorite parts of NY Design week. The show is small and curated, so most of the work is very good. The best part, of course, is that all the work is designed and produced locally. Not only is this good in terms of supporting the local economy, it also has a lower carbon footprint than a trade show that encourages exhibitors and attendees to fly out from all parts of the world. It also means that regular attendees will begin to recognize familiar friendly faces if they return year after year. Think globally - act locally!

Here’s what I saw at BKLYN Designs this year…

For a more extensive view, check out our Flickr Feed of BKLYN Designs 2007>

BKLYN DESIGNS 2007, BraveSpace, Tetris Furniture, Bamboo, Sustainable Furniture, Scrap wood mountain range coat hanger
Longtime favorite Brave Space Designs never fails to impress

BKLYN DESIGNS 2007, BraveSpace, Tetris Furniture, Bamboo, Sustainable Furniture, Scrap wood mountain range coat hanger
This year Brave Space’s Mountain Range Coat Rack, (made from a piece of scrap wood) really caught my eye

clever huh?

We were happy to see a copy of the Worldchanging book (produced by our own Sarah Rich), strategically placed on the new bamboo Brave Space Tetris Shelves

These Longoland monsters were pretty cute - in a cute/creepy sort of way

Does this look at all familiar? We were a little shocked to see another Brooklyn based design company which seemed to be so blatantly trying to knock-off Scrapile. More on this to come….

New discovery this year: Hi-Five’s sustainable chairs are made from Richlite and ModGreenPod Upholstery

Paul Loebach’s Broken Mirror

One of our favorite discoveries this year was Argington’s adorable sustainable kids furniture. This Fundy Play Table has a dry-erase top for drawing on!

Sustainable, socially conscious rug maker Amy Helfand is a designer we are always happy to see

Oso Industries’ gorgeous concrete table

UHURU Designs have been impressing us for several years now with their beautiful, sustainable scrap wood tables

4-Pli’s booth really impressed us this year with beautiful digitally fabricated pieces. These guys are Columbia GSAPP grads - can you tell?

4-Pli’s gorgeous crib made from lasercut layered wood

Nicholas Furrow’s Strainer Lamp casts lovely shadows on the wall

BKLYN Designs 2006>

4 Responses to “BKLYN DESIGNS 2007: Inhabitat Reports”

Anonymous Says:

May 14th, 2007 at 12:09 pm

Glad to see you are calling out the company that completely copied Scrapile!

Lukas Says:

May 15th, 2007 at 9:15 am

Good ideas will always be copied, it is simply the way humans progress. Give it three years and you are likely to find cheap massproductions from low cost countries in furniture shops and another year later you will have printed veneered panels for the shopfitting industry to imitate the look and kill off the initial appeal…

Scrapile can claim the honour to have invented the look (there is honour and reputation in that) and will have to keep inovating to stay ahead of the copy-cats.

Otherwise they can try to sell the idea to a big name furniture design company that can flood the market upfront and register a patent.

Rick Montreal Says:

May 15th, 2007 at 10:20 am

The 2 products are similar-and when its in your own backyard its just silly-
but one could say the same about UHURU-Brent Comber has been doing this prodct range for more than 10 years…