Gamepro did a wonderful video showcasing Three Rings, their wonderful new game Spiral Knights, and the office we created for them (great shot of the secret door!). Enjoy!
We have joined up with our friends John and Kyrsten over at Form & Reform to design and build a fun project for Burning Man!
The project has just launched its kickstater page. So please donate to the cause!
John and Kyrsten over at Form and Reform, have created magical pieces out of metal like the Golden Mean Snail Car, and the Zeppelini. Now we are working with them to turn these metal barrels into a Deco Nordic God creature called.... The Serpent Twins.
The front will be powered by these little electric cars...
And the barrels will be filled inside with programable LEDs. One of the serpents will be all dark metal with a "fire" light show on the inside. The other will be white barrels with a more etherial colorful light show.
You can read more about the evolution of the project on the Form and Reform site. And dont forget to donate!
We're going to be speaking about digital fabrication at the Revit Technology Conference later this month. So we're going to have the first-ever BWC L.A. meet-up while we're out there. We're very excited about it! If you're in the area for the conference (or the wonderful Dwell on Design show), we'd love to see / meet you.
So no June EatFoodTalkShop, instead it's a L.A. Meet-up. EatFoodTalkShop returns next month!
We'll have details posted to our blog and twitter feed later this month. We'll see you in beautiful Los Angeles! Thanks everyone!
We recently were invited to give a talk at the wonderful KA Connect 2011 conference. A meeting focused on how we all capture and manage know-how in the building industry, it was a very informative and inspiring two days!
BIM and Digital Fabrication together create a lot of interesting new challenges and capabilities. We gave a brief talk about our 7-step process we use on all our projects that helps us fully leverage this new way of working for a design-build studio like ours.
Check out the rest of the talks! They are so awesome. Lots of great information!
We recently had the opportunity to go to the Di Rosa, an amazing art preserve and gallery in Napa. If you have never been there, it is definitely worth the trip. And there is wine! So it's hard to complain.
Two of our favorite pieces while we were there:
This awesome moose!
Made of tiny squares and rectangles of plywood as if pixilated.
Fantastic! (artist unknown)
And this amazing David Best car. so cool! Get the to Di Rosa!
We simply love Maker Faire. Having been involved from the start, we've demoed CNC machines, made delightful portable mini-golf courses, collaborated on LED interactive tables, and always really enjoyed connecting with people over the passion of making awesome stuff. This year we were too busy to do anything big and complex, so we instead gave a talk on a subject near and dear to our hearts: how to make secret doors!
For those who missed us yesterday at the Faire, here's a summary of our Maker Faire talk: The Secrets of Secret Doors. Enjoy!
Hi! We’re Jillian and Jeffrey, and we run a design-build studio called Because We Can in Oakland, California. We use big ideas and big technology to make awesome buildings, interiors, and furniture. With our CNC router from Shopbot and modeling tools from Autodesk (both here at the Maker Faire!) we can quickly make anything your heart desires.
One thing we’ve had the chance to integrate into our projects is... secret doors! Secret doors are so great we try to sneak them into whatever project we can. They are a wonderful challenge for a Maker. A challenging combination of design, ingenuity, and craft.
Today, we’re going to show examples of ones we’ve made. We’re going to give you all nefarious ideas to make your own secret doors, from basic and cheap to hella expensive. And that’s the thing: simple secret doors can be made for not very much money at all!
Let’s start with a classic: the Bookcase secret door. They are pretty easy to make: you create a swiveling bookcase that simply covers an existing door. This is great because you get more storage and a secret door. It’s win win!
Here is one that was a simple construction that we did for an office in San Francisco. It's a large bookcase that swings out to reveal a secret room behind it! That swinging bookcase is attached to the non-moving one next to it with nifty secret hinges from a company called Soss. Soss hinges are awesome. They look like this!
That’s ‘S O S S’, the invisible hinge company, best friend to secret door makers for over 100 years. You can get them in all different sizes and strengths, from tiny box hinges to huge ones like we used on this bookcase door. They are perfect for secret compartments and doors, for unlike a normal hinge, you can't see them when the door is closed. They are available from many different suppliers and even at your local hardware store.
Now, the swinging bookcase is attached to the ‘anchor’ bookcase next to it. And that ‘anchor’ bookcase is secured to the wall so it can hold crazy amounts of weight. A big swinging bookcase door is rather heavy, and in earthquake country we wanted a solution that was secure and would last and last. We like to either screw into the wall studs or use these zip tie anchors for situations like this.
They aren’t actually called zip-tie anchors, they have different names depending on the brand (one brand is 'Toggler'), but everyone who uses them seems to call them zip-tie anchors. Here is a little demonstration of how they work. You drill a large 1/2" hole in the wall, and insert the metal part of the anchor into it. Then using the plastic tabs, you 'toggle' the metal part to become flat, and pull it back towards you so that it becomes a flush metal plate inside the wall. Then you 'zip-tie' the front part of the anchor to the front surface of the wall, then break off the plastic tabs. This gives you a strong threaded hole in your wall that you can bolt things securely into and are rated for lots of weight.
Using the Soss hinges hid the pivot, but we wanted to go a little farther with the illusion. So we made more bookcases along the same wall that don’t open. OR DO THEY?!? No really, by placing the bookcase in context it makes for a much bigger surprise. A lone bookcase in an office or home without any other bookcases is very suspect! Context plays a huge role here, it's a lot like a magician getting you to look the other way so you don't see the trick.
This is a pretty big door and it’s pretty heavy! If it simply hung from the hinges it might sag over time and rub on the floor. Which would be sad for the secret door wouldn't work very well anymore. So to keep the door easy to move and working well, it actually has hidden casters under it. We used non-marking rubber wheels so that over time they wouldn't mark up the floor. You can order these special caster wheels from any caster supplier or Mcmaster.com.
Now, with our secret door we actually took a decorative item and bolted it to the shelf to act as the handle. You can also do the classic ‘pull the book’ and have it pull a catch to open the door. However be careful with whatever you do that it doesn’t break and stick the door closed!
Now, what happens if you’ve got carpeting? If your carpeting shows marks of a door opening on it.... well that’s a dead give away. And thus no good for a secret door! Or what if you don’t have the room to have the secret door swing out? While it’s possible to make bookcase doors that swing in rather than out, it’s a lot more tricky and expensive. So in this project, we went sidewise!
This secret door is actually hung from a track that’s mounted into the studs above it. It’s actually ‘floating’ over the floor, just barely touching the carpet. It moves easily and silently side-to-side, revealing the door behind. Again, a big steel rail & the rollers and mounts can be ordered from McMaster.com. We painted the rail the same color as the wall to hide it. The dark colored walls allowed us to do this and still be fairly inconspicuous. You could hide the rail even more by adding a picture attached to the bookcase that covers the rail when the door is closed, but what's funny is no one ever seems to notice it right away at all until the door moves!
One thing to point out here is that the back of the bookshelves match the walls. You notice they did in the first example as well. This adds to the illusion, tricking your eye to think it is looking at the wall, not the bookshelf back.
It’s amazing what you can hide in plain sight too. While we didn’t intend for these doors from our old shop to be ‘secret’ they really turned out that way! The middle part there are a pair of smaller doors, then the whole thing opens up huge when you want it to. False bottoms, false backs, and removable panels all fall into this category. Hiding something in plain sight really works a lot of the time, so you don't need to get too fancy about things!
Can’t make a bookcase to save your life? Well another classic is the secret painting door. Mounting a picture on hinges so it swings out is really easy to do. They can cover anything from a small opening to a whole door. Now, this looks expensive, but those ‘paintings’ are actually large format inkjet prints on canvas.
These images were from the client, but any decent resolution picture would work just fine. We stretched and stapled them to a plywood backer. Then we framed them with pre-cut framing we ordered online. We then simply hung the ‘painting’ from hinges screwed into the wood of the door trim.
Magnetic catches are also a huge help here. These doors snap closed, and are easy to pull open by pulling the edge of the frame. That way when they are closed they look very convincing. If you wanted to get fancy about it, you could even make a cutout for the eyes (so you can spy on people) or make a more complex latch, where you have to pull or swivel something else to open the painting.
Online, examples abound for secret doors, both historic and recent. Doing a little research will give you all sorts of great ideas. There are companies that do nothing but make secret doors or furniture with secret compartments. They are pretty easy to find online and will give you great ideas for your own projects. And of course we’d totally love to help you out with you secret door project! We've made several and have a few more in the works. If you're remodeling your home or office, why not include a little delightful surprise?
Historic research can be a great inspiration. Egyptian tombs have all kinds of secret doors and chambers, some of which we’ve only recently found due to fancy technology! Both old European and Asian castles are rife with secret passages and stories of their use. It wasn’t unusual in houses a century or more ago to provide secret passages to the Maid’s quarters so they didn't disturb the owners of the house. Entrances in cabinets and closets to secret hallways built into the walls are common in some areas!
Many a speakeasy had a secret door to keep itself safe. In New York City there was a speakeasy called the "21 Club." A secret door hid the liquor supply in the cellar. The door was designed to appear as a solid concrete wall. The door, which weighed two and a half tons, was supported by massive hinges and could be opened only by inserting an 18" length of wire through one of several cracks in the concrete. It's still there today!
Some really inspiring recent examples can be found on the MAKE: blog as well with the interactivity people are adding to things using electronics. Using affordable Arduino controllers, Makers are creating wonderful things where a secret knock gives you a gumball or opens a door, or boxes that only open when taken to a certain place.
So that’s some of the secrets of secret doors! Just to recap:
Don’t ruin the surprise! Hide those hinges and catches.
Don’t make it obvious! Put the door in context. Or make it look like something else.
Don’t make it too complex! Hardware exists that will make your life easier.
And that's some of the secrets of secret doors!
Meet us tomorrow, May 21st, at Maker Faire for our talk: "The Secrets of Secret Doors"!
Having made several secret doors, it's a subject we simply love. Really looking forward to sharing the practical and pragmatic tips on the unpractical practice of building secret doors.
We're on at the Maker Live Stage at 4:30 PM, and wandering around the Faire the rest of the day.
Look forward to seeing you there!
Check out our build video, where we show off the process we used to make these fantastically inlayed desks!
Come visit us in Sunny West Oakland this Thursday for a relaxed evening of talk about architecture, 60's vans and secret doors. Pretty much like every other night around here..... only this time YOU'RE invited!
It's staying light later and later, and getting warmer and warmer! We've completed that project from the last time you were here,
and we're now working on more new crazy stuff! Our Maker Faire talk on the secrets of secret doors is slowly coming together and we just got hired to chop bike parts in half and bolt them to a wall. Come see how a bike wheel stays (or does not stay) together after you saw it in half!
What are you working on? We'd like to see and hear about it!
So please drop on by, we'd love to see you. Jeffrey still has not made beer, so while we'll have some it would be awesome if you could bring some too.
We'll hang out. Eat some tasty snacks, and talk about the finer points of what we're all working on. Come join our community of designers, artists, big thinkers, and fabricators!
Kids welcome, but it is a shop and a party. Lots of sharp corners. And they might learn some interesting new words. You have been warned!
Thursday, May 12th 2011
6:30PM - 9:30PMish
2500 Kirkham St
Oakland, CA 94607
(510) 922-8846
Click here for the Google Map.
Hope to see you here!
Lost? Lonely? Want to talk about how great sunny weather is? BWC help and social line: 510-922-8846
Got a cool project? Then submit it to the Core77 Awards!
We're honored to have been picked as judges on the 'Maker / DIY / Hack / Mod' category by our good friends over at Instructables.com. Looking forward to it!
Core77 is one of our steady design blogs we check in on for great ideas, exposure to the new new, and inspiration. Well, and it doesn't hurt that they talk about us every so often either.
You've got about a week to show us what you've got!
We're proud to announce that we've been invited to give a talk at a wonderful conference: the 2011 KA Connect in San Francisco.
KA Connect is an interesting conference on knowledge sharing, knowledge management, and workflow process with a focus on the building industry. The list of attendees is really impressive so we're really honored to be included!
We'll be giving a Pecha-Kucha style talk on our special seven-step process for digital fabrication that's become a cornerstone in the way we deliver totally awesome projects using modern computer modeling and computer-automated tools.
Hope to see you there!
The latest piece on our loft project is the upstairs railing.We made the stanchions in-house; cutting the aluminum and wood pieces on frank.
These are the aluminum side pieces. Just off the CNC and ready to be sanded, finished and assembled:
The wood centers. Glued up and ready to be dyed dark brown with our water based dying system:
And the aluminum top piece that will hold the rail itself:
All together, the final railing looks great.
Jeffrey and Sissily discuss their handy work.
A close up of the railing top.
A view from across the room.
The final addition will be a railing on the curved staircase. More progress shots on that coming soon!
It's April, and with things finally warming up, let's get together for food and to talk shop!
Thankful that the rain has let up, the sun is out, and it is warm in Oakland! We're finishing up a fantastic resin-inlayed desk inspired by turn-of-the-century safe locks and a whole mess of fun trade booth elements for Clif Bar's kids line. We also have a handful of office interiors gearing up that look like they're gonna be a lot of fun. And our Maker Faire talk on the secrets of secret doors was accepted! So now we need to hear all your secret door stories and/or dreams.
What are you working on? We'd like to see and hear about it!
So please drop on by, we'd love to see you. Sadly, Jeffrey has been too busy to make beer, so while we'll have some it would be awesome if you could bring some too. We'll hang out. Eat some tasty snacks, and talk about the finer points of what we're all working on. Come join our community of designers, artists, big thinkers, and fabricators!
Kids welcome, but it is a shop and a party. Lots of sharp corners. And they might learn some interesting new words. You have been warned!
Thursday, April 14th 2011
6:30PM - 9:30PMish
2500 Kirkham St
Oakland, CA 94607
(510) 922-8846
Click here for the Google Map.
Hope to see you here!
Lost? Lonely? Want to debate the finer points of 19th century safe design? BWC help line: 510-922-8846
For a family with small children, we designed these window guards to go along the windows of their 8th floor flat.Similar to the wooden window guards we made at another residence, except these are made of clear acrylic.
Made of clear acrylic, so we did not disrupt their amazing view of the city below. The acrylic is thick and sturdy and creates a wonderful subtle design.
The Window screens in the bedrooms are frosted acrylic, that catch the light beautifully and give more privacy.
The holes on either side of the window allow pegs to slot though to keep the windows up.
See our other window guard designs. And our Child and pet door designs too help round-out a baby-safe but good looking home.
So with our recent press, a common comment came up that goes something like this:
"Business shouldn't waste money on their offices".
To which we couldn't agree more. Businesses need spaces that work. More than that, they also need spaces that support their vision and agenda.
But at the same time, businesses need to keep things reasonable, and not spend money they don't really need to.
Now, you may think that some of our more creative offices we've done for companies are more folly than functional. However, let's take a closer look at one of our past projects: the offices of Three Rings.
Three Rings is a small creative game design studio. They live (and die) off of how good their people are. Unlike a big game company like EA, with armies of people, Three Rings is tiny, tight, and very talented. So one of the primary concerns with their office was to make it a place where their talent would love to work, and to make it a place other talented people would love to work at. This not only draws in talented people, but it makes them perform at their best.
Three Rings also really wanted to create a real place. Instead of an office people dreaded to be at, they wanted a place where everyone was happy to be. Since the new office was completed, it's not uncommon for everyone to spend a lot more time at the office, even if it's just playing games into the evening. Better teams, better relationships, and better communication all come from happier people spending time together.
Another big concern was expression of vision. Instead of looking like every other game company with their seas of Ikea desks and dismal offices, Three Rings wanted to wear their hearts on their sleeves; to say loudly that they are a creative company like no other. Many talk about being innovative, yet few really follow through with that. Clearly communicating that is a key part of their marketing.
Finally, Three Rings wanted a clear way to express their vision of being a small yet terribly creative company to other companies and investors. They knew that any potential employee or VC that walked in the door and was scared off at how over-the-top the office is would very likely be someone that they wouldn't want to work with. By clearly showing their vision it's much easier for them to find other people who may share that vision and want to help make it bigger and better.
Study after study shows that a better office makes for more productive and happier people. And having an office that matches your company's vision is a vital part of marketing and communicating what your company is all about.
More productive people + happy workers + clear communication + vision = more money being made.
Or, you could look at it this way too:
Inefficient people + unhappy people + muddled marketing + no vision = bad business.
When you add into the fact that due to our special process and talented people here at Because We Can the cost of the Three Rings office was totally reasonable.
We were able to design and build the whole Three Rings office for less than it would have cost of nice-but-depressing office cubes.
Sure, it costs more than just parking everyone at an Ikea desk, but just think: that boring-but-normal office that's not much more than cubes, a break room, and maybe a ping-pong table could instead be a vibrant expression of your company's core. While also making everyone there more productive and happier. And making everyone more money!
So we agree: businesses shouldn't waste their money. Which is something a boring, poorly designed office actually does.
The Office we created for Three Rings Design was recently used in a SF Chronicle article to showcase how great office spaces retain employees. Here is an excerpt from the article:
Startup executives recognize that a nice office can also help keep employees. Daniel James, CEO of online game company Three Rings, said his unique office in the South of Market district contributes to the company's healthy retention rate.
After all, who would want to leave an office that looks like the Nautilus, the submarine from Jules Verne's "Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea"? Complete with wood-carved workstations, dividers that look like giant portholes, a game room with 20-foot-long tentacle cushions, a bike-storage room that resembles a ship's engine room and a secret meeting area hidden behind a swinging bookshelf, Three Rings' office is one of the most creative in the city.
"The fact that we have a fantastical office is an expression of what we do as a company, which is making fantastical worlds," James said. "I think employees appreciate that we're willing to spend effort and money on giving them a creative work environment. We certainly have a good record - people tend to stick around in a very competitive market for talented people."
The office was designed by Oakland studio Because We Can, which specializes in custom projects.
"Companies who come to us have pride in what they do, so they want to encourage employees to get excited about where they work," said the studio's co-owner, Jillian Northrup."
We did that office over three years ago, and it still gets great press!
Read the whole article here
Last week while in NYC we dropped in on Adafruit Industries. Run by the brilliant Limor and Phillip, they design and make and sell kits and parts for all your electronic project needs. We're big fans! We're excited they had us sit for a short interview for their great "Ask An Engineer" weekly internet show:
Ask an Engineer 3/19/2011 from adafruit industries on Vimeo.
Thanks Adafruit Industries! Totally inspiring to see you guys. They were nice enough to also give us a copy of the latest Wired that Limor is on the cover of (go Limor!) and a Ardino starter kit that we can't wait to begin playing with.
If you want to jump ahead and just watch the interview with us (and not the whole show above) then watch the video below instead. But the whole show is way better, we're so totally buying some of those new color-changing flexible LED strips for our private office library project...
because we can from adafruit industries on Vimeo.
Thanks again you two!
In late January, we were honored to be last-minute invites to Autodesk's new IDEAS conference.
Part Foo, part mini-TED, part book-launch party, it was a really incredible experience. We got to meet lots of other amazing people and share all sorts of subjects. As part of a company that is strong on how and weak on why, it's always fun to bring our pragmatic and hands-on vision to the big ideas table!
There was a big focus on 'Design Thinking' and the value design has for business, our communities, and our world. Some talks from some amazing folks, then some creative break-out workshops, and of course, lots of conversations over lunch and dinner.
While we're huge fans of Autodesk's tools (especially Revit) the focus on the conference was less about Autodesk and more about just doing amazing things, no matter what tools were used.
One really cool feature of the conference was the visual documentation via photos and cartooning that was going on. Conversations were captured in a really compelling and concise way, while it was happening, by a team of amazing illustrators in the wings. Their handiwork can be seen in the great PDF summary of the conference you can see here. And cameras were everywhere, with the resulting Flickr stream here.
We were really jazzed to meet some of the people from Bespoke, who also do digital fabrication (i.e. make stuff with robots) but instead of custom interiors & furniture, they make amazing artificial limbs.
All in all, a simply amazing time. We hope to get the chance to go again!
Wait, it's March already? Indeed, so let's get together for food and talking shop!
You'd think that the fact that we're now officially a Corporation we'd be a little more formal about our events. But then what sort of corporation does what we do? Come see our latest projects, everything from a geek's dream of a TARDIS to a whole subdivision of houses in San Diego. Or just come to hang out with other designers, artists, big thinkers, and fabricators.
To our local friends, we'd love to see you, and to our NYC friends, we'll see you soon!
Catch up with us now, for next week we'll be in NYC bopping about. We'll have food and drink and lots to talk about, so please come by!
Kids welcome, but it is a shop and a party. Lots of sharp corners. And they might learn some interesting new words. You have been warned!
Thursday, March 10th 2011
6:30PM - 9:30PMish
2500 Kirkham St
Oakland, CA 94607
(510) 922-8846
Click here for the Google Map.
Hope to see you here!
Lost? Lonely? Want to hear more than you'll ever want to know about the TARDIS? BWC help line: 510-922-8846
We've used waterborne finish on all of our products for years. It is easy clean up, and way less toxic to humans and the environment than traditional oil finishes. We used off-the-shelf brands when we were first starting out, but once we discovered Target Coatings we looked no further. Mostly we use their waterborne laquer finish. It is incredibly durable, and very pretty! The super low VOC of these products means no off-gassing for our clients. Our clients tend to like that!
The emissions chart on their products is way below what california requires (which is a good thing). California being one of the stricter states on the emissions laws, that is really saying something.
They've used our images a couple times on their website and newsletter to promote their products, most recently using images from a conference table we made for Penny Arcade
They recently gave us a shout out, so we're giving one back! You can buy different quantities and have them shipped. Being water-borne also means it's not flammable. Hooray!