Furniture Design: What Berkeley Mills is Doing Right

First, some baseball.

My cousin Dan was in town last night- finishing out a tour of the bay area he wanted to see a game at Oakland Colosseum, and invited me to join him and his friends. When I bought my ticket, it came with the option to have my ticket texted to my phone- I wasn't sure how this would work, but I have no printer here, so I gave it a try. A few minutes later I was texted a link to this page:



This served as my ticket. I held up my phone, and they scanned the screen, and I got in! However, I had to go in a specific entrance where they had the phone-screen scanner and go up in a roundabout way. Also, I am not left with any fun ticket stub to remember the game with, so I doubt this technology is going to replace real tickets any time soon.

The game was great, the A's won 8-4 in what started as an exciting scoring fest, and dribbled into a less exciting game as the rains started. But we had a great time mocking the condition of the park, trying to sneak down to a lower deck, and heckling Ichiro Suzuki. But enough about Baseball, you want to read a blog about baseball, go here.

This morning the plan was to visit a real furniture company to get some inspiration for my work table and futon projects. The plan is to take a field trip every week somewhere that will give me some insight. I did some internet search for "custom furniture" in the bay area, and Berkeley Mills stood out among the rest.

I arrived there this morning and was taken with the first piece of furniture I saw- just a dining chair that had embellished on a mortise and tenon joint where the tenon passed entirely through the wood, something I'm told is called a "through mortise." I sort of got the feel for their aesthetic, taking the existing structure and pulling it a little further, beyond what you expect, so the aesthetic choices don't look out of place- they're also structural. This dining chair's slats extend below the seat. I love this chair- only $2050 for a set of 8.



My favorite piece seems derived from those uncomfortable wood desks we used so sit in in grade school- the ones that were basically a chair with a tiny desk bolted under the right side- lefties be damned. The chair here has one arm rest, perfect for leaning and a seriously broad one at that. Big enough for, say, a sketchbook. I sat here and sketched of a bit, and the operators of Berkeley Mills did not seem to mind. The chair was a whopping $6k, but if I had that much to spend on a chair, this would be it.



I heard another customer in the showroom complain about people's affinity with Ikea, and my immediate interior reaction was hey, I LIKE Ikea. But then he went on about the durability of the products, and while I've never really had trouble with them lasting as long as I needed them, furniture used to be made to outlast you. Remember that old dining table in your parent's house that used to be your great-grandma's? Chances are it was never made to flat pack. Berkeley Mills, while expensive is making that kind of furniture. Beautiful stuff, and its the last table your descendants will ever have to buy.

The last bit of my time there was spent in the shop- Joel who works there and has a voice for NPR gave me a quick tour. The first news about their process was a bit of a surprise- all their furniture is rendered in SolidWorks and large portions are trimmed out on a CNC machine. Not an old fashioned practice to be sure, but it seriously cuts down on waste, saves time, and actually improves the quality of the furniture. There is plenty of the work still done by hand, but this is 2010, and even the finest things are manufactured to an extent.

The hand working section was really neat to see- I didn't want to take any photos of people working but I love this wall- Joel says they never throw a template away.



All told I took about fifty pictures and filled four pages with sketches and notes- and am ready to finalize the design for my futon. I plan to have some renders for you all to look at tomorrow! Until then, thanks for clicking. And leave a comment!