abc home&carpet serves to manifest a shift in the paradigm of retail, composing a revolutionary platform for offering cause related product through beauty, experience and magic. By giving their customers the ability to use their dollars, their values, and their individual self-expression as a way of voting to create a new green economy for a healthy planet and people, abc has created a truly unique shopping experience.

A daily practice at abc is to see a home as a mirror. The space they create around themselves reflects their personal vision, and when it is realized, it mirrors back a sense of wholeness and refuge. abc’s inspiration is for an integrative design of modern, timeless, cultural and spiritual elements that reflect balance and healing.

Back in 2003, abc began a transition to being a mission-driven socially responsible business. abc home & planet was developed to express a passionate commitment to offer choice at the cutting edge of design and beauty that, in its essence, is healthy and pure for you, your home, and our collective home.

Adamant to align their business practices with ecological responsibility, abc aim to source companies who share the same outlook, such as new Zealand designer David Trubridge.

abc forms a portal into collective creativity, integrating healing, education, sanctuary, theater, art, and interconnectivity to create the experience of a three-dimensional living magazine and interactive museum. abc aspires to manifest a universal exchange where spirit, sustainability, culture, currency and creation coexist; a holistic sensory experience to inform and inspire participation. Through the expression of passion with beauty as a tool, abc present commerce as a vehicle for insight and for action in the aid of creating a better world.

To commemorate Breast Cancer Awareness Month, Ford & Ching and RS-Barcelona are proud to host a one-of-a-kind foosball tournament and cocktail reception featuring “Ella,” the world’s first female foosball figure. All proceeds benefit Keep A Breast Foundation, a non-profit organization dedicated to breast cancer prevention, early detection, and support. Doors open early evening on October 6th as 16 teams compete for a chance to win special prizes provided by RS-Barcelona. An open bar will provide ample lubrication for the athletes and onlookers. The tournament consists of two-person teams drawn from the creative community. No experience necessary and 100 percent of the $100 team registration fee goes to a great cause. For more information, visit Keep A Breast Foundation and RS-Barcelona.

Having showcased their new line, Electrocentricity at this year’s Maison&Objet, Thailand based furniture and lighting company Ango have been attracting international attention. Before you book a flight to Paris to purchase one of designer and founder Angus Hutcheson’s dichotomic designs that are an extraordinary juxtaposition of nature and technology; just remember that they are available considerably closer to home.

Ango designs are available for view and purchase through Therien’s Los Angeles and San Francisco showrooms, or by contacting agents Ford&Ching. This

Lighting and furniture designer Brendan Ravenhill’s story is so far removed from convention that it reads somewhat like a novel. It began normally enough on the coasts of Maine where Ravenhill recalls his first creation: a raft. “I grew up always spending time by the water in Maine and in Cote D’Ivoire” recalls Ravenhill , “as far back as I remember I was always working on a craft of some sort.” After building his first boat from a set of plans, Ravenhill instantly realized the inherent power construction drawing. “Recreating a complex and curved hull from a couple of sheets of paper made me realize that I wanted the ability to convey three-dimensional forms to others.”  He then went on to receive a Sculpture degree from Oberlin College in 2001 and graduated from the masters program in Industrial Design at RISD in 2009. This is where the story begins to sway.

A few years ago, Ravenhill was coerced by his wife to participate in something she’d created on the site ETSY (an e-commerce website focused on handmade or vintage items as well as art and craft supplies) called Mail Order Pals. “It was basically a pen pal for purchase,” Ravenhill explained to the online publication Sight Unseen. “People could buy you in order to receive a letter or a surprise package in the mail.” After someone “bought” Ravenhill, he went to the hardware store and whipped up an elegantly simple wooden swing-arm lamp overnight.

Upon seeing his creation, the designer’s wife convinced him it was just too nice to send. The pen pal ended up getting a wire sculpture of a penguin, and the couple began living with the lamp. In the months that followed, Ravenhill became obsessed with the design, refining and tweaking it in his head to the point that by the time he was approached to create a piece to show with the American Design Club at a trade fair in New York, he was able to fashion a prototype in a week’s time. The final lamp — composed primarily of porcelain, cast aluminum, a cloth cord, and a bare bulb — packs and ships flat and sells for less than $200 at places like The Future Perfect, cementing the young designer’s status as a rising talent to watch.

In addition to gaining him notoriety within the design community, the Cord Lamp bestowed upon Ravenhill the fundamentals to getting a design into production. “I made the first ones myself in cast plastic with this ridiculous two-part mold that had an incredibly high failure rate,” Ravenhill recalls. “I would wire the whole lamp and pour hot plastic over it. Sometimes the lamps would have air bubbles; sometimes plastic would go into the sockets and you’d have to dig it out with an X-Acto knife.” As the lamp began receiving more orders, Ravenhill eventually realized that this could no longer operate as an one man operation and began sourcing manufacturers who would ultimately save the designer hours and hours of wiring. Within a couple of days, Ravenhill had a caster in downtown Los Angeles, a porcelain guy in South Central, an electrician, and a powder-coater across town. All of Ravenhills subsequent designs now follow the multi-manufacture approach. “I rarely go into a project without three or four factory tours. Like right now, I’m working on a cast-aluminum piece and I’m constantly bringing things in to the guy going, ‘How was this built?’” No matter how many people end up manufacturing any one of Ravenhill’s designs, they must all first go through his meticulous scrutiny to achieve his iconic style.

“Utilitarian objects and buildings, particularly tools, wooden boats, and barns,” explains Ravenhill. “In my designs, I seek to find that beautiful balancing point where manufacturing methods, material properties, and economy are all equally considered.” A prime example of this is Ravenhill’s use of Edison bulbs for his lights. While they may not be as efficient as the smugly popular compact florescent bulbs, Ravenhill favors Edison bulbs for their beauty and unparalleled illumination; the crucial finishing touch to his works. While Ford&Ching will focus on finding dealers and distributors for Ravenhill’s lighting, it isn’t to say he is a one trick pony.

In addition to lighting design, Ravenhill is also a renowned furniture designer with commission works showcasing from coast to coast. Ravenhill has designed furniture for the Los Angeles restaurant Osteria La Buca. “Before I could even think about any formal considerations for the La Buca chair, I had to think about a material. It was for a restaurant that was going to order 80 of them, but they wouldn’t order anything if the chair wasn’t competitive with other restaurant seating.” The venture proved successful as Ravenhill was recently commissioned to create new versions of both the stools above and the La Buca chairs for a new outpost of an Italian restaurant in New York.

Lighting designs by Brendan Ravenhill available for purchase and viewing at The Future Perfect or by contacting agents Ford&Ching.

posted by Intern on September 19th, 2011 in Featured Items,Uncategorized

Showcasing at this year’s MAISON&OBJECT is Electrocentricity, a new lighting series by Thailand based furniture and lighting company Ango. While not much is known about the new series, Electrocentricity will undoubtedly adhere to designer and founder Angus Hutcheson’s dichotomic approach to design; often described as an extraordinary juxtaposition of nature and technology.

Hutcheson’s path to design was neither clear nor predicable. By the age of 11 Hutcheson’s interest in architecture was leading him towards a future in field; however a recent expulsion from school led many of his career advisors to believe refuse collection would better suite his “radical independent thinking.” Luckily, it was the same free thinking, along with several “rather naïve drawings” that won over the admissions panel at the Architectural Association in London, where he would eventually receive his AA.

Under the then chairman Alvin Boyarsky, Hutcheson gained indispensable knowledge about architecture, design and the creative process as a whole.  Recalling the experience, Hutcheson admits that “in terms of reaching my full potential” the education he recced under Boyarsky was “unparalleled” and truly a “privilege.” Victim to the too much of a good thing idiom, Hutcheson soon realized that the quixotic parameters of a class room did not translate into the working world.  He soon found out that he “wasn’t so good at balancing all the constraints and compromises involved in the process of architecture.”

Hutcheson’s artistic interests began to wane from architecture and were re-invested into furniture and lighting design. Unlike architecture, the new medians allowed Hutcheson to “set his own agendas” and realize them in a much shorter turnaround time. Hutcheson’s creative ambitions were realized in 2003 when he launched his furniture and lighting company ANGO.

Ango’s designs are nearly all lighting and describe a kind of allegory about nature and technology — a vision of an electric arcadia created with light. Their fusion pieces have already been showcased in the United States, Paris and Milan with accolades at every stop. And while the ascetics alone merit approbation, their choice of material is the real distinguishing element in Ango’s designs.

“There is always a focus on innovation with new materials and processes” admits Hutcheson.  “Using these principles to create new light fantasies” is what Ango does best. Hutcheson and his team are always searching for a “magic combination” of light diffusion and form in their designs. Making the list are materials such as Mulberry tree bark, Silicone rubber and silk cocoons.  Recently, Ango has launched a light diffuser formed from an exciting new polymer, developed by Ango, that is totally derived from sea kelp. The project has proven so successful that Ango has acquired a piece of land where they actually grow some of the materials that are used in their creations. Always looking forward, Hutcheson also plans to create studios where visiting designers and artists can work developing new ideas, nurturing young design talent.

Ango designs are available for view and purchase through Therien’s Los Angeles and San Francisco showrooms, or by contacting agents Ford&Ching.