We are working on a very fun office interior renovation for an independent game studio in New York. At the end of last year we were heavy in design phase... doing things like this:

....and now we are heavy in fabricating pirate ships!

Working closely with this small office, we created a new look for their office of many rooms. This big fabrication run is for one of their larger rooms where everyone sits, which we are turning into a nautical paradise. The photo above is a prototype for ships that will straddle cube walls and provide shade against noon day glaring sun.

Here is our original concept drawing...

The larger ships are part of a set of screens for and undefined hallway to give it some privacy and interest.

There are stacks and stacks of ships!

And don't forget... waves for the ships. Or they won't get anywhere!

An additional promotional article posted in the SF Chronicle over the weekend mentions us in the same sentence as President Obama. We'll take that. "When President Obama gave a shout out to 3-D technology and its potential to revolutionize U.S. manufacturing in his State of the Union speech last month, he might as well have been talking about Jillian Northrup and Jeffrey McGrew of Oakland, (California). The principals of the architectural design-build studio Because We Can are harnessing the increasingly affordable power of robotics to create whimsical custom furniture and fixtures for Bay Area clients, including gaming company Three Rings, producers of the popular computer game Puzzle Pirates. They also created a buzz with this mad scientist's office, complete with cat transport tube, designed for Eric and Sue Johnston of San Francisco and built using Frank, a Shopbot CNCRouter.

For more on the couple and their quirky studio, click here."

We were interviewed for the Home and Garden section of this last Sunday's Chronicle.Check out the article here. It's a nice piece!

To match the dining room chairs we made for this client a while back, we recently added some tall pantry doors and screens for the existing cabinets. The dining chairs we made are a set of all different patterns incorporating a tree design motif on the back.

Because the chairs are a focus point of the room, the client wanted a few custom elements for the adjoining kitchen to it all together.

We made a couple of these screens to cover plain areas of the cabinets.

And then created a design that matched the chairs for their larger pantry doors.

Once the framing surround for the cabinets goes in this will all be complete!

Winter is almost over (yay!) and it's not freezing in the shop anymore. So stop by and help us join in the fun!

We are opening our doors for Because We Can's Winter 2013 open house.

We'll be starting early at 5PM and going until 8PM-ish.

All are invited, so come on by! We'd love to see you.

We'll be celebrating and showing off recent projects completed and those underway. It's a great time to drop by and talk shop with us.

We'll have some snacks, some drinks, many new projects to show, and more.

Kids welcome, but it is a shop and a party. Lots of sharp corners. And they might learn some interesting new words!

Friday, March 1st

5PM - 8PM

2500 Kirkham St Oakland, CA 94607 (510) 922-8846

Click here for the Google Map.

Here is a quick and fun design idea for a bike rack.

Slowly raising the bikes in a continuous wave pattern so they fit and pleasantly fill the space under existing stairs.

For a loft renovation project in downtown San Francisco, we designed light shades inspired by blooming flowers.

Lots of other things are happening in this project, but for now I am just showing off the light shades. They came out really nicely and make a big difference already to the space!

Large frosted bulbs allow us to have the bottom of the shade exposed, and show off the details inside. When you look up at the shade you can see the aluminum plates that suspend above. The patterns cut into the plates throw fun shadows onto the ceiling.

Of course, the different patterns throw different shadows above.

We had a fun time designing these. Not one shade is alike, as the overlapping frosted panels fall in a different orientation on each. The patterned aluminum is unique on each as well. More to come on this project as it progresses!

As we've mentioned before, we are helping The Long Now renovate their space at Fort Mason by adding a Bar and Event Space into the existing museum. The Long Now is a non-profit who's mission is to creatively foster long-term thinking and responsibility in the framework of the next 10,000 years.

This new space is part of that mission. To help raise funds for this project, they have collaborated with non other than St George Spirits to produce a Gin from the Juniper Bushes at their clock site.

There are so many cool links in the above sentences I cannot even believe it.

Anyway, January 23rd, you can taste this amazing Gin and help support the project by coming to the Gin Tasting event at Fort Mason!

We will be there talking about the new designs, and generally mingling. Hope to see you there!

Our latest improvement to the Mad Scientist Home Workshop project just got its first cat friendly transportation.Just look at this happy customer:

The tube system travels over the desks,

around three of the four walls, allowing cats to access the top of the Maker armoire.

There are viewing ports for engaging with humans though,

and hidden access points.

As well as lots of details to make it aesthetically pleasing. Including this operable wheel!

The first step to greater cat mobility throughout the room is here!

Autodesk University was last week, where we had a great time taking cool classes, meeting new people and giving a presentation on Digital Fabrication. We also helped out this year by making a few tables for the Digital Fabrication Lounge area.

There were Checkers tables:

Chess tables:

And a Go table:

We carved different designs and text over each table...

And made matching stools:

Did you notice that the stool and table bases spell out "AU"?

See Jeffrey talk a bit more about the tables on the Core 77 blog here

The Serpent Twins took a visit to Peralta Junction a week ago, and you should too before they close!

Peralta Junction is a great pop-up outside venue filled with live music, vendors and games. We look a night time trip there, but they are open during the day too on the weekends.

The Serpents were looking mighty fine that night in their glowing glory.

Who know what you will see there!

Meet us in Vegas! We'll be presenting at Autodesk University again this year. Keeping it low-key this time after last year's keynote, we're just giving a single talk on digital fabrication. Thus giving us time to go to lots of awesome classes, meet up with great people, and visit a wonderful tiki bar. We'll see you there!

We have been involved with The Long Now for years. They are just too cool for us to stay away. But recently they asked us to help them design their new salon space. Of course we accepted! Their current space has an open office over a museum and book store that shows off all their various projects. They also try to use the space for receptions after their very successful lecture series they hold in a nearby theater within Fort Mason. They noticed that there are more people having more interesting conversations in these receptions, so they want to turn the space into one that could accommodate this use all the time.

We have been working closely with them to make the new layout a modular design that will fit their unique needs.

By day, the space will serve as museum, library, event space, and coffee bar. It will allow for The Long Now to expand upon their very successful lecture series into smaller, more intimate events.

By night a cerebral salon space that serves inspired cocktails and promotes conversations through the exhibits on display.

To help fund the project, artisanal bottles of Gin and Whiskey are being made by St. George Spirits, using the Juniper berries and botanicals from the clock site.

If you purchase one of these bottles, it will be kept at the salon, in traditional Japanees Bottle Keep style, for you to enjoy there. The bottle will be lowered down to you from the ceiling, where all the bottles are kept, like a full ceiling chandelier.

We are looking forward to seeing this project go into construction. And it will happen sooner if you all purchase a bottle!

It will not only serve as a fund raising vehicle for the non-profit, but act within the community and larger society to help further the primary goal of the Long Now: to foster and encourage long term thinking.

You can see our full project page for more images here. And find out more about how to support The Long Now salon here!

We've just migrated our site from Drupal 6 to the new Drupal 7. Huzzah! We took the opportunity to fix some outstanding issues & revise our theme. It's a snazzy new one that auto-adjusts for device and looks awesome on tablets (and soon smartphones). We'd love to know what you think of it! A few minor tweaks to go, so things will be a little fluid for a bit.

What better time to take your site down and redo it when everyone isn't looking due to the election?

Jeffrey and I had some Halloween fun last week, designing and making our outfits with lots of flair additions made on Frank. The costumes were very esoteric: "Miskatonic University Archaeologists".

We made a box for each of us. An apparatus used to scan the local vegetation and inhabitants. They glowed an unnatural color from within and allowed for lots of 'fine tuning' with their dials and buttons (and they doubled as as a small bag).

We carved aluminum plates to add authenticity to the boxes.

And a large plate to adorn the leather strap.

Finally, a final touch of matching emblems for our hats.

Hope you had a great Halloween too!

Last week a small film crew took over our shop for a while, taking lots of video for one of our projects.During which, Jeffrey got interviewed.....

And so did Frank!

Design is an iterative process, where changes occur as the best solution presents itself from the back-and-forth between the client, the physical constraints, and our ideas. And so sometimes ideas we've come up with for a small part of a project no longer fit into the larger picture. These orphaned ideas are still cool, so we love to share the sketches for them with you! Recently we were asked to produce a gamer-themed coffee table as part of a larger office remodel we're doing. The lounge it was slated for changed ideas, and a so overtly gamer themed custom coffee table didn't really work anymore.

The first idea we came up with was this Tetris-styled table, where the blocks are various shades of wood inlay into a maple top portraying an endless perfect game falling into place.

The next idea was for an 'ultimate battle' space invaders styled table, where the 'bad guys' get more and more modern as they ascend up the table. This one would be black resin inlay into a maple top.

Really loved the progression of characters on this one.

The last idea was for something a little more modern as games go, and it's for a portal-themed table. An LED-ringed mirror on either side of a nice maple butcher-block top makes it appear as if the top is endlessly passing between the two portals, one red and one blue!

Shame that these three rough sketches won't be made real for this project. Maybe next time!

One thing about our company you might not know: we're an Open Business. We release almost all of our work under a Creative Commons licence. Even our Business Plan. Which just got majorly updated! We've learned a lot since we posted it last time and feel it really reflects that. If you're either into business or looking to be, check it out.

We'd love to hear what you think about it!

Fall is here and this Friday is First Fridays in Oakland (i.e. the 'Murmur'). So stop by and help us join in the fun!

We are opening our doors for Because We Can's fall open house.

We'll be starting early at 5PM and going until 8PM-ish.

All are invited, so come on by! We'd love to see you.

We'll be celebrating and showing off recent projects completed and underway. It's a great time to drop by and talk shop with us as well!

We'll have some snacks, some drinks, the now-almost-complete paint job on the '67 van to show off, and more. Lots check it out!

Kids welcome, but it is a shop and a party. Lots of sharp corners. And they might learn some interesting new words!

Friday, October 5th

5PM - 8PM

2500 Kirkham St Oakland, CA 94607 (510) 922-8846

Click here for the Google Map.

Now that summer is officially over, we really should tell you about our summer intern, Abigail. While she was here she was able to design and fabricate multiple pieces, from a large cabinet to some small bench prototypes. The cabinet was a basic design that needed to store some items we have in the shop space, but we decided to go to town with the doors. Abigail had fun designing them, and learned a ton about our workflow here at Because We Can.

Here is what Abigail says about the project: This cabinet was my first experience using Revit to design a furniture piece. Previously I had considered Revit to be strictly reserved for modeling larger architectural models but was both pleased and surprised to discover how intuitive and efficient Revit was at modeling not only the overall furniture mass, but also the joinery details as well. After completing the Revit model, I exported the doors of the cabinet into Adobe Illustrator where I was more easily able to design the decorative motifs. From designing and building this cabinet, I believe I gained a greater understanding of the impact modeling programs have in aiding design and fabrication.

Next Abigail worked on a bench prototype for our Burning Man camp with The Serpent Twins. She made several prototypes to make sure the design would be sturdy and easy to assemble.

About the benches Abigail says: I took a similar approach to designing the Winged Benches as I did the cabinet unit. I first designed the overall mass within Revit and then exported the model pieces into Illustrator where I drew the decorative profiles and winged back. It was fun to design such an animated piece with such a simple configuration. Designing this flat pack bench that assembles without any additional hardware only further confirmed for me how digital fabrication enhances both design and production.

Thanx Abigail! Good luck in school!