Big Leaf Manufacturing

The Seattle-based woodworkers use years of experience to take artistic risks

By Sam Bovarnick Roy McMakin opened Big Leaf Manufacturing in 1997 as a workshop for his furniture and architecture firms, but now maintains a level of independence that allows it to take on commissioned projects. Seattle-based Big Leaf has since established itself as one of the finest specialty woodshops in the world, and we recently paid them a visit to see how they go about …

Acciaio Chair

Inspired by classic racing bicycles, designer Max Lipsey’s stunning chair design transforms steel bicycle tubes, leather and aluminum into a series of handmade, lightweight chairs that are unbelievably strong.

Off The Grid at Gallery R’Pure

A designer camping trip with Frederick McSwain and François Chambard's first collaborative collection

If glamorous camping is “glamping,” does that make designer camping “damping?” Whatever you call the pristine, outdoors-inspired objects in “Off the Grid“—the collaboration between designer François Chambard of UM Project and artist and designer Frederick McSwain—the exhibition playfully riffs on the title, from literal interpretations of grid-based design to more free-thinking explorations of what it means to take the design off the grid. For Chambard, …