Soft Spot for Saddle Shoes

June 12 · Furniture Designs, Uncategorized · Black Walnut, couch, furniture design, John Houshmand, JOHNHOUSHMAND, Manhattan, new designs, Spalted Maple, wood

Side tables, low tables, dining tables, consoles, chairs, desks, benches, beds, shelving, oh my! JOHNHOUSHMAND has covered the spectrum of furniture for years but there has been one thing missing…until now.

Introducing No. 0156, the Saddle Shoe Couch with robin’s egg blue upholstery. Inspired by the classic shape and color contrast of saddle shoes, JOHNHOUSHMAND‘s first couch is structured with an elegant combination of Spalted Maple and Black Walnut.

Watch out for more unexpected designs in the coming months!

A JOHNHOUSHMAND Zen Garden

May 22 · Events, Furniture Designs, Uncategorized · acrylic, Cast Aluminum, furniture design, ICFF, JOHNHOUSHMAND, low table, Manhattan, new designs, wood

It has been a whirlwind of a weekend with the kickoff of the International Contemporary Furniture Fair (ICFF)! The JOHNHOUSHMAND team stayed up late Friday putting the finishing touches on our very own zen garden at booth #1122.

We wanted to let the natural beauty of our furniture speak for itself in a calming oasis. Using sand, stones, slate tiles, and moss we created a unique environment for our wood, metal and glass pieces. We even developed a special sand-paste in order to make a one-0f-a-kind flooring that looks like loose sand but can be walked across freely without breaking the swirling pattern.

Additionally for this special occasion JOHNHOUSHMAND debuted two new pieces! Both the Tattooed Acrylic Cicada Side Table and the Petrified Wood Low Table were noticeable show stoppers amongst the classics on show. JOHNHOUSHMAND was one of hundreds of exhibitors at the fair this year including Kohler, Jonathan Adler, Lindsey Adelman, Charles Pollock, Blu Dot, Artek, and many more.

Chutes and Ladders

May 10 · Architectural Designs, hous projects, Uncategorized · architecture, far out, JOHNHOUSHMAND, new designs, sculpture, workshop

You may have been wondering what the guys at the shop have been developing with this new system of armatures. Here is the newest prototype! It may look complicated. And that’s because it is.

These rollercoaster-esque columns, or as we like to call them “stems”, are a part of our newest architectural project. The possibilities really are endless when using these ultra-flexible and elegant winding forms.

One can’t help but be reminded of one of John’s sculptures from 2008. Ladder, seen below, seems to be at the root of our newest project! This sculptural quality can really seen as a thread through all of our pieces, be it architectural or industrial. Come see it for yourself at the Soho showroom!

JOHNHOUSHMAND / ICFF / 2012

May 04 · Events, Furniture Designs, Uncategorized · Cast Aluminum, dining chair, furniture design, ICFF, Interior Design, Javits Center, John Houshmand, JOHNHOUSHMAND, low table, Manhattan, wood

For those in the know, ICFF is a time-honored tradition, but for those yet to be acquainted with one of North America’s biggest tradeshows, the International Contemporary Furniture Fair, here is a quick play by play!

ICFF annually hosts over 25,000 designers, architects, interior designers, retailers, manufacturers, developers, distributors, and representatives at the Jacob K. Javits Convention Center in New York City. This year the ICFF is hosting representatives from Argentina, Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada, China, Denmark, El Salvador, Finland, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Latvia, Mexico, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Scotland, Singapore, South Korea, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Taiwan, Thailand, Turkey, United Kingdom, and U.S. One part of the U.S. proponent? JOHNHOUSHMAND (for the second year in a row)!

We will be located at booth #1122 & and exhibiting a carefully curated collection of both never before seen pieces as well as timeless JOHNHOUSHMAND classics. Come join us!

Geometric Pieces, Organic Shapes

May 01 · Uncategorized

For our newest architectural project we’re experimenting with dynamic armatures. In the past we used to make ribbon shaped assemblies using CAD files. We would insert section ribbons and transform them, or unfold them. The shopbot then adds ribs and we glue it all back to create the shape. The new type of armature we are working with allows flexibility and pins together to hold its shape. Though it’s not as exact, it’s definitely much faster and more flexible as it can take the shape of any organically curving wood structure.

We’re excited about this new process and it shows! The guys at the shop have been having fun experimenting with the different shapes that can be created with these flexible structures.

Check out the video HERE to see how it works!

Sticks & Stones

April 24 · Architectural Designs, News, Uncategorized · Black Walnut, Granite, Interior Design, JOHNHOUSHMAND, Luxury Residences, Manhattan, new designs, Reception Desk, Rockwell Group, the W, wood

They say first impressions last a lifetime – and we sure hope they do when you enter the new W New York – Downtown at 123 Washington Street. Our latest project, No. 0235, a Black Walnut dowel reception desk with a granite top, really is a statement piece.

Actualized in collaboration with our good friends at Rockwell Group, this bold and angular creation joined pieces by renowned companies such as Jim Thompson, Maya Romanoff and The Rug Company.

Time Can Tell

April 12 · Furniture Designs, Uncategorized · JOHNHOUSHMAND, material, petrified wood

Introducing Petrified Wood, the grandfather to Spalted Maple, Black Walnut, Bubinga, Oak and Pine. Petrified Wood is the newest addition to JOHNHOUSHMAND‘s library of materials.

Petrified Wood is wood that has been fossilized due to pressure over decades. It takes less than 100 years for the transformation to take place resulting in beautiful slabs of rock resembling the wood it used to be.

In our newest low table, No. 0234, the black jasper tone of the Petrified Wood is shown off on a simple blackened steel base. We can’t wait to come up with more uses for this elegant material.

Some things really do get better with age.

Inked Up

April 09 · Uncategorized · acrylic, far out, JOHNHOUSHMAND, new designs, new process, process, tattooed wood, wood

Our newest custom finish is pure beauty without the pain: tattooed wood and acrylic. At JOHNHOUSHMAND we love the natural and uncontrollable characteristics in salvaged wood but this “tattoo” finish is a custom dream.

At the shop upstate we create a CAD drawing of the desired graphic and send it to a CNC machine which routes out the graphics from either wood or acrylic. Next we fill the path in with epoxy (which can be any number of colors) to really bring out the image. So not only do we have control over the image but also the color and thickness of line! Flexibility at its finest.

Here are some samples of the clean and crisp shapes created by this process for a project we’re currently working on.

Playing With Marbles

April 06 · Asides, How to Talk Like John, Uncategorized · John Houshmand, marble

Every so often I get a hankering to bring in some new materials to work with and when it’s stone, there’s nothing quite like marble… Man has been using marble since the day he figured out how to cut and shape rock to do his bidding. I had some ideas on how it could do mine.

So you would think that The World’s Largest Marble Quarry would be in Italy (I’ve been to Carrara and Pietrasanta…. Driving up the coast road I thought that was snow in them thar hills until….) or in some other far flung place.

But it turns out it’s a bit more than two hours from the ranch in nearby Danby, Vermont. I had to go there and see for myself. It helped that a project in Singapore for the W Hotel chain wanted some boulders with polished faces.

They just don’t allow you in the quarry to kick some stones, especially if you’re looking to buy a few small boulders. But a few calls to the owner of the company (who became a fan of our work) and a bit of expansive discussion, and I got an invite, a tour, and a chance to pick out some large chunks.

I wandered up and down the quarry roads, peeking around piles of blocks, scree, and precariously balanced 20 ton hunks of scrap, looking for the perfect shape. This was a dream unlike any I’ve had. I have toured the Italian stoneyards, been to Crab Orchard Tennessee with Vicente Wolf, and selected limestone in Oaxaca for Edgar Bronfman’s bathroom… but this was a mother lode, literally. We need to know more, see more, understand more. Mike the quarry manager, who was one of the most genuine humans I’ve ever met jumped me into his pickup, we veered around the John Deere block loader (capacity 80,000 pounds) and headed underground into 40 acres of subterranean stone cutting operations.

There are quarries up and down the hills, and then there is the cave, manmade, hollowed out over a century of excavating, and with miles of roads, “rooms”, trucks, pools of wastewater reclamation, mountains of scrap and slabs, and spray painted signs reminding one of “EXIT,” in case you needed to get some air. 45 degrees year round.

Visions of marble blocks, slabs, boulders, sculptures last night. All night. Going back. ASAP. Have a plan….

Specially Made

March 23 · Furniture Designs, Tree Travels · JOHNHOUSHMAND, low table, Microslab, SHAZAM, Spalted Maple, wood

When we say custom we really mean it. Slab selection is a unique process at JOHNHOUSHMAND in order to give our customers truly one-of-a-kind pieces.

It begins after the client picks one of the over 200 pieces in our product portfolio. One of our awesome salespeople then discusses specifics such as wood species and dimensions for the piece. Once the salesperson receives the client’s specs he/she then talks to Jim, our production manager at our 950-acre facility. Jim will then go to our abundant library of slabs searching for the top four slabs that best match the client’s criteria. The client chooses from these four slabs and we can begin producing a distinctive piece suited just for them. Here are some photos of slab selection process for one of our No. 0187.1 Shazam low tables for a client.

Visitors are welcome to come by the shop to take a look around anytime. It is quite the operation and allows us to control each detail of a project. Plus, it gives our clients the opportunity to be creative and conjure up work that is like no other in our style. If by chance you find yourself in upstate New York one day, just let us know and we will give you a tour!

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