Drop by the Strong Sports Gym at the Kim Sing Theatre for conditioning training every Tues/Thurs 7:30am.

With this passion for metalwork, Brandon took a rundown warehouse space in Wicker Park, Chicago and founded a steel studio. Here, Brandon was able to hone his craft and turn concepts into objects. Not only was this home to the creation of his art, but he graciously shared the space with other steel artists, creating somewhat of a steel artist community. Being able to cultivate relationships with fellow metal artists turned out to be a critical step in the birth of Modfire. Current partner Marty Young and Modfire’s current West Coast Sales Director David Dorn Weesner were amongst the community of steel artists in Brandon’s studio.

David and Marty grew up together in a small town in Indiana where both fathers were contractors. They spent their early childhoods picking up nails, filling drywall cracks and eventually building houses.

Referencing these past experiences, their earlier company, Stēl Objekt, developed. That early company focused on custom, upscale, one-of-a-kind installations for restaurants, businesses, and residential loft spaces in North Chicago. Most of these early projects involved Brandon spending time in the individual spaces and designing objects that complemented the architecture and lifestyle. It was an excellent lesson in melding the softness of space and light to balance the heaviness of the steel.

After one too many cold winters in the unheated Chicago studio, warmer weather enticed Brandon’s move to Arizona, Marty to Florida, and David to Los Angeles.

For Brandon, the change of scenery inspired a change in design aesthetic. Industrial lofts were replaced by 50s ranch houses. Stark spaces with bold accents were replaced by the smooth organic shapes of mid-century modern. And the Stel Objekt designs adapted, became more subtle, more nuanced.

In this desert landscape, the concept of Modfire was born. But to take Modfire from concept to operating business, Brandon made calls out to Marty Young and David Dorn Weesner to help put the pieces together. Two months after making those calls, Modfire LLC was born.

The road that Brandon traveled as an artist to arrive where he is today was not an easy one. In many ways it parallels his outlook toward his craft:

“Simply put, it’s difficult work, but this is what we do to make beautiful, compelling pieces…Weld, grind, sweat, repeat, I realize metalwork isn’t for everyone, but I couldn’t imagine doing anything else and my clients are thrilled with the end result.”

Brandon on his artistic process:

“I have a soft spot for beautiful things. I love order. Clean lines and great design compel me. I create with a minimalist perspective that has been shaped by years of distillation. The most useful lesson of my life was learning how to simplify. My execution, however, is always the opposite: thunderous, messy and highly charged. A cacophony of sounds and implements of creation being put to hard use. The howl of a grinder and sparks of steel start to fly. Talk about satisfying… It‘s that strange juxtaposition I find so interesting in what I do as an artist.”

“At the drawing table I’m a designer with great ideas and grand concepts that speak to me and fulfill my need to bring beauty onto this earth. But, when I’m in the shop, I’m a craftsman with metal in every pore of my being and the guy who regularly gets mistaken for homeless and offered change or a hot meal (true story).”

More Foosball anyone? After introducing the stylish RS#2 to design savvy consumers a few years ago and the first all-female Foosball table Ella late this year, the designer at RS Barcelona were left with a challenge; how do you modify an already successful design to suite everyone else? The answer is the new RS#3.

“Every time we looked at the RS#2 we thought everyone should be able to enjoy a football table like this,” explains table designer Rafael Rodriguez. The whole RS Barcelona team then got involved in this new project: converting the RS#2 into a football table for a wider audience. In the offices they began to shape their formative ideas into drawings. The drawings were then taken to the workshop where they began to work with new thicknesses of metal and different finishes followed by stress tests, hammering, bending and welding. All of the teams’ efforts and labor were rewarded with an all-terrain, lighter, more colorful and more economical foosball table.

The RS#3 makes it easy to play anywhere. The RS#3 is perfect for both interior and exterior, giving both the recluse and the outdoors lover the chance to up their game. The RS#3 shrugs off inclement weather and the passing of time. Not sure which room gives you the best playing chi? At 20 kilos lighter, the RS#3 can be moved from room to room with ease. In addition to its diet, the RS#3 redesign of its lines and structure has made it more manageable to transport. Weighing in at 69 kilos (152 pounds for you imperialists) the RS#3 is the champion of the lightweight division so you can keep the shots coming with all the passion and strength you can get from your wrists.

With all the modifications and the weight loss plan, the RS#3 comes to you with a smaller price tag than its cousin, making it the ideal stocking stuffer. The RS#3 is available and ready to ship for the holidays through A+R in Venice, the Conran Shop and by contacting agents Ford&Ching.

“I do not design to fulfill a practical function. I design to communicate, to tell a story, to relate what I find in the mountains and wilderness and what it is to be human” explains lighting and furniture designer David Trubridge. At first glance, any one of Trubridge’s perennially highly stylized designs evoke the beautiful complexities of nature; giving merit to  his claim. It is only when you understand the creative and manufacturing process each pieces undergoes do you fully become aware of his intentions.  While many designers regard the issue of sustainability as an afterthought, Trubridge believes it to be of paramount importance and makes sure his company abides by his environmentally honest code of ethics.

""My ideas come from wild places, edges of turbulence and renewal, where seas break on beaches and headlands, where land and air meet on mountain ridges."

David Trubridge graduated from Newcastle University in Northern England in 1972 with a degree in Naval Architecture. He then spent the better part of a decade in Northumberland where he taught himself furniture making while working part-time as a forester on a private estate. It was during this time that Trubridge ameliorated his own designs which later exhibited around Britain. The nation took notice and many commissions followed, most notably from the Victoria and Albert Museum, St Mary’s Cathedral Edinburgh and the Shipley Gallery Newcastle. While the commissions greatly aided his career as a designer, Trubridge’s next move would transform him as an individual and shape his philosophy indefinitely.

"I am not interested in trends or fashion. That will turn you into a follower. I try to find my own heart and to have the confidence to speak from it, with integrity and in my own voice. "

In 1981 Trubridge, along with his wife and two children sold everything they had and bought a yacht which they named ‘Hornpipe’. The family then set out on an open ended adventure around the world. For five years they sailed through the Caribbean and Pacific, stopping to work for a while in the Virgin Islands and Tahiti, making furniture for expatriates on Tortola and Moorea.

They arrived in New Zealand in late 1985 basing themselves in the Bay of Islands from where they continued to sail on ‘Hornpipe’. The families Pacific travels proved a preeminent source of inspiration for Trubridge, resulting in a series of chairs made like outrigger canoes: light flexible structures fastened with string lashings held graceful canoe forms as seats. The Canoe Chair is now in the entrance foyer of the New Zealand embassy in Tokyo.

As the years passed by, the realities of parenthood loomed and ‘Hornpipe’ was sold in order to provide the children with high school education. The family moved to Hawkes where Trubridge became an Artist-in-Residence at Hawkes Bay Polytechnic (now EIT). While here, Trubridge developed a series of works derived from the East Coast landscape and its fractured friable rocks. This along with the family home which Trubridge had designed gained the designer further architectural commissions and local notoriety.

"I do not want to produce the equivalent of a superficial pop song that may be the rage today but is forgotten tomorrow – it is my dream to create something like Bach's music that is not just remembered but can still be inspiring hundreds of years later."

Trubridge became a regular in the local design community, frequently participating in design competitions. Taking inspiration from their much loved boat, the colorful Hornpipe Bench was made for a national Design competition using Radiata Pine, which it won as well along with a number of other awards. The bench went on to exhibit in Hannover at ‘Ligna’ and London, and was included in the International Design Yearbook. While the international accolades were significantly advantageous to Trubridge’s career, the greatest part of the whole experience was the prize. For winning the design competition Trubridge was sent to Japan, where he combined a short residency at Kyoto College of Art.

Trubridge, now adjusted to life on terra firma, began immersing himself in projects including a series of figurative works that retained expressive tool-marks from the making process and also incorporated wood block prints. What is noteworthy about this project is that it was funded by Creative New Zealand (Arts Council) grant, further cementing Trubridge as a New Zealand designer.

In 1999 David curated a national exhibition called Furniture in Context for the Hawkes Bay Cultural Trust, which later travelled to the Dowse Art Museum. For it he made the first Body Raft 98 designs, which were exhibited with blue-prints of yacht designs. The second version of the Body Raft was shown at Salone Satellite in the 2001 Milan Furniture Fair, where it was picked up for manufacture by Cappellini. This drastically affected Trubridge’s fortunes, life style and business model. His role had developed from that of a local designer/maker to an internationally known designer running his own design and manufacturing business with sales all over the world.

"Art, craft and design: all are equally important parts of the whole creative process. All the way though this process we try to be as caring and sensitive to the environment as possible, and to pass on that sense of care within the object."

While Trubridge still has his studio in the garden of his home, the work with Cappellini allowed him to also have a larger workshop nearby at Cicada, where much of his work is produced. Trubridge uses the facility as his own manufacturing workshop and as an incubator for design graduates. The works designed and manufactured from this facility have been featured countless times in publications and exhibited around the world.

In the last few years Trubridge has exhibited at 100% Design in London, nine times at the Salone del Mobile in Milan, and four times at ICFF in New York. His ‘Body Raft’ design is currently being manufactured by Cappellini, and was voted ‘an iconic New Zealand design’ by Urbis readers. His design ‘Raft’ was the only piece of furniture in the finals of the Japan Design Foundation’s International Competition 2001, and was also selected for the International Design Yearbook (IDYB). Snowflake light won a Silver Leaf at ISDA Japan. He has been selected for five IDYB entries. In addition to these Trubridge’s work has been exhibited in the Pompidou Centre, Paris and at important design shows in Zurich, Gwangju (Korea), Taipei, Singapore, Sydney, Dubai. It has been used in shops as part of displays supporting fashion designers Kate Moss in London’s Top Shop, and Stella McCartney in Printemps Paris, and on the catwalk in Milan fashion week. It can be seen in luxury resorts around the world in such places as the Seychelles, Mauritius, and Fiji. And it is used in bars, restaurants, airports, and company foyers everywhere, even the Swedish Stock Exchange.

With prolific exhibiting came a myriad of press. Over recent years Trubridge’s designs have been featured innumerable times in publications around the world, from Portugal to Lithuania, Ireland to Taiwan, Iceland to Ukraine, including the influential Italian magazines Abitare, ddn and Interni, plus Time, Wallpaper, I D magazine, and even the Financial Times. His work and writing have appeared in a number of design books and his designs have featured on the cover of two eco-design books.  For two years in a row Abitare picked out one of his designs for their preview of the best things to see in the Milan Furniture Fair. In 2006 the French editors of Elle Décor magazine judged his lighting to be the best of the year. And in 2008 another French magazine Express listed him as one of the top 15 designers in the world. In various recent European articles his work has been identified as internationally trendsetting in a new form of “raw sophistication”.

"I do believe that we need great works of art as they extend what it means to be human. Art is so important: it is constantly questioning, pushing our boundaries of perception and experience -- probing for that edge, its friction keeping alive the spark of life."

Also an accomplished speaker Trubridge has presented at conferences in Auckland (NZ), Sydney, Adelaide and Perth (Australia), Mexico City, San Francisco, Edinburgh (UK), Dongguan (China) and regularly gives public lectures all around the world. He has run four Vitra Design Museum summer design classes in France and worked with design students in Iceland on a project to do with whaling. He was the international judge at the 2006 Queensland Design Awards.

With such a distinguished career, it is no wonder that in September 2006 Trubridge was the ‘Wornick Distinguished Visiting Professor’ at California College of the Arts in San Francisco for 2 months. His artwork ‘On Thin Ice’ has been shown at the Natural World Museum/UN exhibition on global warming in Oslo/Brussels/Monaco/Chicago in 2007/8 where it won the award for the best sculpture. In 2007 he was given NZ’s highest design award, the John Britten Award, by the Designer’s Institute on NZ for his contribution to NZ design, which came on top of many New Zealand design awards. While many designers would capitalize on their achievements by any means necessary, Trubridge is adamant in maintaining a sustainable operation.

In all management, design and manufacturing operations, Trubridge works to minimize his impact on the environment, people and future generations, leaving a delicate footprint at all times. In order to achieve this everything Trubridge produces is made to the highest possible standards of craftsmanship and materials, designed to last a maximum lifespan with no regard to ephemeral fashion, and to be finally easily recycled (preferably by David Trubridge Designs ) or safely disposed of. Further, all timber used is from sustainably managed plantations either in Australia, NZ or USA  meaning no rainforest timber will even be found in any of Trubridge’s designs. Other sustainable practices include: use of organic non-toxic natural oils with no harmful solvents, all waste from the factory is sorted and sent to separate recycling facilities, designs are packed flat and kitset for easy and low energy freighting and among many more, nearly 70% of the electricity used is renewable hydro-electric.

“I would like to find a way to bring cultural nourishment into people’s lives without using up precious resources and energy” explains Trubridge when speaking on his designs and their production. “We have far too much ‘stuff’ in our homes, which is little more than junk food designed to leave us only craving more. How can we create real and lasting nourishment without the clutter of useless objects that waste precious resources and damage the environment?! Design that does not address this issue is, I believe, both irresponsible and irrelevant.”

Why Land Shark you may ask? If you have heard that term before but do not remember where it is from, you have think far back to 1975 in which SNL debuted Chevy Chase’s Jaws parody, the Land Shark (which is still You Tube-able if you do not get the cultural reference). Even with a funny name, Slawta’s products were far from a joke.

A pivotal year for the company came in 1986 when Slawta was asked to build several frames for a group of professional riders, including Andy Hampsten, Roy Knickman and Steve Hegg. Up for the challenge Slawta went on to build some of the most sought after frames of the year.

1988 was the year that cemented Slawta and Land Shark’s reputation in the industry. Andy Hampsten, riding one of Slawta’s Land Sharks went on to win the Giro d’Italia. To say thank you, Hampsten’s bike hangs on the wall in Slawta’s Land Shark fabrication shop with the message “Thanks for the bitchin’ bike.”

Word soon spread to everyone from professionals to weekend warriors about Slawta’s award winning frames. Clients now include actors Harrison Ford, Woody Harrelson, Michael Nouri, Olympic volleyball great Karch Kiraly, ex-Laker Billy Thompson, former SF 49er Dwight Clark, along with hundreds of cyclist enthusiasts.

With larger demand came the need for a much larger studio. Slawta soon packed up his Los Angeles shop and settled in Medford, OR back in 1991. What didn’t change with the company expansion was Slawta’s input on every frame. Many are surprised to find that Land Shark is something like an army of one. “They ask me if I’ll tell the painter how to paint it,” chuckles Slawta, “and I tell them that I’m the painter, too.” Riders appreciate being able to talk directly to the man who’s building their dream machine. “You tell him what you’re looking for,” says Land Shark owner Glen Gann, “and he knows what to do.”

What makes a Land Shark So unique you ask? Slawta mastered the art of tube-to-tube carbon construction, which is widely considered to be the best (also one of the most labor-intensive) methods of building a super-light, durable carbon frame. Along with patience, the process requires hand-mitering a custom, aerospace grade composite tubeset and bonding them together. Not light work by any stretch of the imagination. Further, each tube intersection is then painstakingly hand-wrapped with carbon. Finally, a carefully crafted process is applied to achieve the optimal carbon-to-resin ratio. What results are liquid-smooth tube joints that are incredibly strong, all weighing around 2 pounds.

As if this was not enough to spate a Land Shark Bicycle from its competitors, each frame is then given the highest level of finishing detail and custom paint, giving it the same iconic look that brought John Slawta and Land Shark notoriety back in 1986.