We've just put up our tree in the office!

Decorated the library....

And put lights on our robots!

Happy Holidays from all of us at BWC!

Our good friends over at the Instructables asked us if we wouldn't post up how we made the Serpent Twin's tails. So here it is!

Enjoy! It's our first big instructable so we'd love for you to go there and leave us a comment on it.

Also, if you want to see the Serpent Twins in person, there is a big party this weekend at Jon's shop. All are welcome!

The Serpent Twins are coming along, but still have lots to go.
The heads of each critter is framed out, and now come all the details and finishing bits.

One Serpent will be all black, and one all white. Here the white one awaits it's head...

The fins for the "backs" of the serpents were cut out of sheet metal, then welded together.

in the end, they will look like this:

More to come soon!

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!

Stage 1 of the 'Hot Sharp Toxic' room. This swiveling desk is the first stage of a larger project to turn a room in a private residence into a splendid mad science lair. More pictures here and on Flickr.

Check out our build video, where we show off the process we used to make these fantastically inlayed desks!

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 communicate 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.

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!

We recently finished up some additions to this little room in San Francisco.
Shelves to the ceiling with a built in desk, and now with a built in baby door!

This baby door has a shelf on top and an adorable little door, for the little tike.

Serving it's purpose to keep your little one in the room, and doing it in a stylish manner.

No end of fun with peek-a-boo games!

The little door opens up a grand adventure!

For dining time and crafts, we made this table with a sturdy butcher block top and decorative legs. The fun chairs have a lincoln head and a dear head carved in the backs.

We also helped reconfigure this stage backer we made for their wedding to work on the wall...

But the little door seems to be the biggest hit with the smallest man of the house!

So you may remember the wall-hung 3D Wikipedia logo we made a while ago when we were helping them out with redoing their offices.

Well, we took that same 3D model (done in Blender!) and we 3D printed small, round versions as well. They came out great!

Wikipedia has a picture of one up on their thank you page right now. Check it out!

We were really happy how they came out. Thanks to Ideate for the local printing services.

Is teh cool!

We just finished making and delivered this victorian - inspired table made of hardwood with an aluminum core to a downtown San Francisco client. We purchased the chairs to go with it.

The top surface is a white board laminate...

The top flips up on hydraulic lifts that keep it in place in the down and up positions.

It's a standing white board, and a white board table!
With storage for pens and erasers on the inside.

The hardwood with an aluminum core is a striking look, and makes it super sturdy!

Our newly designed cord management leg is cool looking and oh so functional!
Made of a black lacquered engineered wood interior and anodized aluminum sides.

The channels on the inside of the leg allow for cords to flow through from the floor to the underside of the table, unseen.

These legs & tables were designed by us & fabricated in our in house shop. Frank's spindle upgrade has made making things out of aluminum a breeze. A loud, messy, sharp breeze.

The result we think is a sleek sexy but practical leg for a wonderful table!

Recently we were brought in by Bookrenter.com to help set up and brand their office interior. We were excited when we saw their mascot is a cartoon "Tiki" man with text books on his spear!

We proceeded to make them a Tiki reception desk, with books on spears of course...

The reception desk is a typical two-level design, with a hardwood bar top surface, with thatch and bamboo detailing. The desk is complete with enormous bamboo foot rail and natural rope lashing!

For individual desks in this office, we helped Bookrenter.com keep an open office configuration, by creating desks that have these cool daisy-chaining power units in the underside. This allows the desks to be in free form rows up to 8 desks away from a wall mounted power source. You can even 'hot swap' them from place to place!

The desks have a nice ergonomic curve to them, adjustable sit/stand height legs, cord management holes on the top, and cord management trays underneath.

To keep with the Tiki theme, we also created 'tiki' rolling white / pin-up boards.

The rolling white boards preform double duty as privacy and sound barriers in the open floor plan. This works great with the flexible power desks in that they can reorganize their teams quickly at will.

Vinyl decals decorate all the interior windows, carrying the fun Tiki theme throughout the office. It also adds more privacy and division to the windowed meeting rooms and offices.

We're proud to announce that Jeffrey (finally) got his paper from the state. While I passed my final Oral Exams a while ago, the paperwork took a bit (as always).

So say hello to Architect Number 32623 (a palindrome! Awesome!).

Woven Twist Coffee Table. Sustainable Maple and Walnut ribs weave together into this modern yet organic base. Another custom piece design for an office interior in San Francisco that we're working on.

The two opposing spirals create a delightful visual tension (and give the form strength) while the frosted top adds mystery to the 'fingers' holding it aloft. Let us know if you'd like something simular!

One of the best things about working for Because We Can is that we get to meet great people at great companies all the time. Most recently, we have been introduced to the wonderful company Bookrenter, who rents books to college students, saving them tons of money. What a great idea! Their website has a Tiki / tropical paradise / Polynesian Pop theme to it. So in helping them out with their office, we thought we should carry that theme through. Thus, the birth of the Tiki white board.... A staple in every Tiki themed office! A white board on one side, and a pin board and sound wall on the other. Covered in a fun decorative thatch, on red and white locking swivel wheels. The base of the Rolling white board is at an angle such that one can arrange these in any number of configurations up to a 90 degree turn. And the tray for markers and erasers is functional, and filled with cool wood joinery details. The thatch on either side is sprayed with a on-toxic fire retardant, to help prevent the wrath of the Fire Marshall gods... These can be used as partitions between desks, or just as rolling white boards within the office. This is the first round of Tiki-themed elements, there is much more to come!

We're in the middle of helping a San Francisco Financial company make their offices awesome. The overall chosen direction is a 'modern victorian' feel, where warm and ornate meets clean and uncluttered.

One idea we developed is this wunderkammer banquette for the lobby. A semi-random assortment (59 in fact!) of properly golden-mean proportioned drawers adorn this modern take on a curio cabinet or card catalog of old. Some of the drawers as also false, instead being doors to A/V equipment cubbies.

Rendered in sustainable walnut and maple, it has a delightful character, enticing waiting guests to explore it's many secrets. Complete with vintage cast-iron styled drawer label / pulls, we're thinking it would be full of various small treasures and surprises, lovingly cataloged away.

We're really happy with how this one turned out. Let us know if you'd be interested in something similar!

We've talked about the HelloLucky wedding (of Daniel and Eunice) here before, but we are going to spend a few blog posts going into detail on a few items we made for them. First off, The Stage! We had a few design challenges to solve with this particular stage design. The actual platform that everyone would be standing on was rented. So we did not want to attach our stage to it, not wanting to put any damaging holes in the rented part, and also not knowing exactly what this rented part was going to look like until we showed up on site, the day before the wedding. The second challenge was location. The ceremony was out in the middle of a field in Northern California, so everything had to be brought out there in parts, and then assembled. We wanted to make the assembly as fool proof and easy as possible. Finally, the middle of a field in Northern California can get a bit windy. The stage assembly had to be set up the day before the wedding, staying out in the field over night. We needed to make sure everything would still be standing the next morning, no matter the weather. And so the construction began. We basically made the stage out of big sturdy boxes that bolted together. Two people easily assembled and lifted the stage backer into place. And our sturdy back stage structure was created. The sides of the stage were then staked into the ground, so it would stay standing through the windy night. The decorative elements then clipped to the front. Hiding the back structure. A few screws were put in to make sure nothing moved. And the stage was up in no time. A beautiful backdrop for a fairy tale wedding!

There is only one more day left of the 2010 Game Developers Conference in San Francisco. If you get the chance to go, check out the booth we made for Unity Technologies. It's hard to miss them on the trade show floor, as they are front and center! And their booth looks a little differently from everyone else's. Instead of the hard plastic and pop-up look of the booths around it, we made them a booth with inviting wooden furniture and a dramatic feel. It's all sustainable materials too! The main elements included: A big big wall with Unity Logos and Flat screens A podium A Standing Reception Desk A Triangular counter table for 3 iMacs A station for 4 iphones Two Long Counter tables for demo stations Six cabinets with signage for their affiliates (shown here standing back to back) Thirteen little stools And a lounge area!

On our way back from the BIM FORUM conference in Phoenix, AZ, we took the opportunity to go on a quick building tour. In Phoenix we went to visit two very divergent buildings, both in function and aesthetic. First we went to the Phoenix Public Library, designed by Will Bruder The celebration of materials in the library's interior is beautifully done. Exposed concrete spans up to the exposed under ceiling, and the tall ceilings keep the place cool in the summer. He added whimsical sail - like shades to the exterior to block the harsh summer sun. The 5 story building has an elevator in the center of the front lobby. Instead of hiding it off in the side of the building somewhere, Bruder put the it in the center, left all the mechanical workings exposed and made every surface he could out of glass. It is an incredibly modern and industrial look. But done so well, it is not harsh at all, but inviting and interesting. The next building we went to see was the Mystery Castle An endearing story of a man who, diagnosed with only a year to live, left his family and moved to then, the middle of no where in AZ and set forth building a castle for his daughter. His family did not know where he had gone to, until many years later when he died and left the mostly finished land and "castle" to his daughter. Now just above a suburb of Phoenix, this completely hand built building still stands. The daughter lived there for many years, and gave tours of the place for most of her life. Now very elderly, she is still there for the tour, but no longer leads them. The castle was built around the same time that Frank Lloyd Write was building his studio, not that far away. It is amazing to think of all the work that went into this place. Every brick scavenged and placed by hand. Finally, while passing through LA, we stopped off to see the new tower in downtown that was just completed by Gensler. When Jeffrey worked at Gensler five years ago, he helped out with some of the complexities of this building. It was really cool to see it built in the flesh! It has an incredibly complex curtain wall, and was designed completely in Revit. Jeffrey helped with making the parametric families for the curtain wall. And helped making this BIM project a success. The bulb shape of the tower combined with the complexities of the curtain wall made it imperative that the project be done using BIM. This building was actually the presentation that Gensler made at the BIM forum we were speaking at in Phoenix. We'll do a post on that conference soon, and tell you all about it. See all the photos from our trip here.

So with all the talk recently both in favor of and the rather cynical counter-take on the 'new industrial revolution' I figure that it might be good for someone who's personally involved to share their thoughts as well. Take it for what you will, for this is just my view, but so far most of what I've seen written about it hasn't come from anyone directly involved with it.

So then who am I to talk about it? Well, a few years ago my wife and I bought a CNC routing table without much idea for what to do with it beyond making cool stuff. As a matter of fact, it's the very first blog post on this blog. We'd never even used a CNC machine before, actually never even seen one before in person. But we figured that we could figure it out, and with help from others online and the company we bought it from we got it running. We started making stuff for ourselves. Then friends. Then friend's friends. It blossomed into a business. Pretty soon we quit our day jobs, and now we're even hiring people. We were the first ones to bring a CNC router to Maker Faire. Hell, my wife and business co-founder's picture was on the poster for the first two years of Maker faire. So we're smack in the middle of this 'movement' I think.

Everyone seems to be having a hard time figuring out exactly what to call what we're doing. We've had this problem too. In fact, I have yet to hear anything that really nails it. But this guy comes close with the thought of calling it 'punk manufacturing'.

Let's take a brief look at punk rock then. OK, so just before punk, let's say the mid 70's, to be in a great rock band you'd need to be either a big rock star or a talented virtuoso (or both). Get signed by a big label and all that. Rock music was mostly about big production, big ideas, big marketing, and 15 minute guitar solos.

But then along comes punk. Suddenly, anyone with passion and good ideas can have a great band. Get rich? Probably not. But at least have a chance to be something more than whatever they were before. Have some great stories. Maybe even make enough money to just play music and not have to work some crap job.

And for most that was enough. I mean, heck, leisure for half the people on this planet is a full stomach, so getting to play music for a living, even if it's a lower middle class living, sounds like a hell of a deal to me. Sure, by the second or third wave you had punk bands like Green Day making a killing, and all that big media stuff getting back into it, but even those Green Day guys were starving teenage punks at one point, just playing music because they loved it, and riding that for as long as they could.

So now we've got the 'Makers Movement'. The new industrial revolution. But honestly, it's just a bunch of folks that via new possibilities can do what they have always wanted to do: make stuff. I think that both extremes of the Wired article and Gizmodo's response totally miss the fundamental point: it's really about freedom. Freedom for those of us who have only wanted to make things, to be able to do so, and make enough of a living that we can spend all our time doing what we love.

The sad reality that I have seen today is that anyone interested in making things goes to school for many years with the hope of being able to make fantastic things. Then they graduate, only to work on soul depraving things for years on end. Either pushing lines around in a CAD program drawing bathrooms, or designing headlights to purposely break in around five years. Only after working for a very long time, or playing well at political games, or becoming an academic to support themselves, or being really, really lucky, only then do they even have a chance of being in a leadership role; deciding what's getting made. I know many disheartened engineers, architects, and industrial designers. Once in the real world, they've found that no matter how good their ideas are, or how much passion they have, or how hard they work, it simply dosen't matter. Until they fight their way to the top they aren't going to be doing much other than making someone else's ideas real.

We all went into this wanting to make stuff, and came out not making much of anything.

So along comes cheap hardware, cheap CNC machines, and the Internet. Suddenly, we can all make stuff. All the stuff we've always wanted. And, hopefully, we can find lots of people to make it for. People who love it. Heck, maybe we can even keep our day jobs, and make stuff on the side. Or we can start our own business 100% and see if our ideas will really fly. We can make the stuff that our friends will love. We can make the stuff that we love. It opens up vast new areas. Just like with punk rock, all it takes is an instrument and an idea and you're on your way. Are you going to be a rock star? Get rich? Probably not, but who cares about all that corny self-centered stuff when you're having this much fun simply doing it?

So will it change the world? You know what, us Makers really don't care. We're having too much fun doing what we love. We're free to simply follow whatever idea we've got as far as we can. If you think for a second I'm not going to ride that for all I can, when all I've ever wanted to do in my life is make great things, then you've got a strange idea of how people work.

Honestly, I wonder if the cynical counter-response is partially from someone who's bitter at being stuck at a desk job. What's wrong with a bunch of new small business sprouting up all over America? Small business built this country, small business are the backbone of this country, and frankly, big business have little interest in a lot of local issues. Small businesses are all about local issues. If this movement launches a slew of new small businesses, I think it will indeed have an impact on our world, every bit as much as the Internet has.

The Gizmodo article does raise one very valid point: not everyone is going to be part of this thing. Which is fine, really. Everyone having access to guitars didn't make us all punk rockers. Everyone having access to a computer didn't turn us all into programmers. Everyone having access to a worldwide publishing system didn't make us all interesting bloggers. So everyone having access to manufacturing capability isn't going to make everyone suddenly a professional Maker. And that's OK.

Let's look at it this way: I'm now a small business owner, making a middle-class life for myself, and starting to employ others. While over the last three years the world famous Architecture firm I used to work for has laid off almost half it's staff. Working for a big company is no more stable than what we're doing, and heck, what we're doing seems to be working pretty well so far. It's certainly a lot more fun. I'm adding a lot more value to the overall GDP and my local community now then I was when I was working for that big firm. I'm creating real value, here, in my backyard. And while I loved working at that big firm, and running our own thing is terribly stressful at times, man, I wouldn't go back unless I had absolutely no other choice.

In other words life isn't just about profit, nor is that the only meter one should measure a business with. I feel both Wired and Gizmodo missed the point here: it's about freedom and happiness, plain and simple.

The Three Rings office space in downtown San Francisco is a Jules Verne inspired space complete with portholes to the sea, a secret door and a lounge area made of giant attacking cephalopod arms. We created this space in 2006, and not only does it still look great, it is still getting press. Recently picked up by SuperEco, I think this is the first time this space has been called out for it's eco-friendly fabrication! All the walls and the interior decorative elements at Three Rings were painted with an Ultra-Low VOC paint. The wood finished were all water based dyes and water borne sealers. And no actual cephalopods were harmed in the creation of this office.

Pick up the February addition of Fast Company off the news stand to see Because We Can highlighted in the "Fast Talk" section of the magazine! This month is about innovative LED lighting, and our Interactive LED tables were used for one of the full page spreads. Complete with Jillian and Jeffrey in their Because We Can red jumpsuits! The table used in the photo shoot is the Ripple. Shown also in the photo below.

We're honored to be included in this year's BIMForum conference in Phoenix, AZ! We'll be giving a talk about BIM-to-CNC fabrication on Thursday afternoon, January 14th, at 3:15 pm. We'll be focusing a lot on our in-house process we use to go from BIM to Digital Fabrication. We'll also be talking about the big changes that have been recently happening in that space. With a few fun things to show off, we've got high hopes that it will be a great talk!

In the past, CNC machines were used to solve one of two problems: either you needed to make a whole lot of something quickly, or you needed to make something that wasn't easy to make by hand. CNC machines were all about high production rates. And they had to be, for they were ungodly expensive, and the software and know-how even moreso. But now with CNC machines getting cheap enough, and the knowledge widespread enough, so that anyone can use them for almost anything they can think of, well, it really changes the whole game. And that's exactly what were going to be talking all about!

The BIMForum conference is held twice a year by the Associated General Contractors of America, an industry group akin to the AIA or AIGA but for builders. With a focus on emerging technology and it's use in the building industry, BIMForum looks to be wonderful conference of AGC people. People who are really making changes and making things work. So many of these technology-focused building industry talks can wander into the tall reeds of theory. So we're rather interested in talking to a bunch of people who are more about the day-to-day realities of getting things built! We're really looking forward to meeting everyone.

Hope to see you there!

Penny Arcade recently launched it's own video show, highlighting all things Penny Arcade. It's a wonderful look into a great company, and the highlight so far we think is the latest episode about Child's Play, the way-cool charity they run.

A fun thing about it is that the conference table we made for them last year makes a cameo in the opening credits and sometimes sneaks into other scenes as well. Awesome! We're proud to have been able to make such a thing, and happy that much gaming of all types (as well as business meetings) have happened over that table. The glow-in-the-dark centerpiece hasn't made it into the show yet however...

We're proud to share that we recently won the Design Slam Competition at Autodesk University earlier this month!

The Design Slam is a intense challenge of design, skill, and presentation, all compressed into 20 minutes. Run by Cut&Paste these mini design competitions are for all sorts of different toolsets, from Photoshop to 3D software.

Three competitors are given a design problem (or "brief" as it's sometimes known) a few weeks prior, and are only allowed to bring a handful of pre-made pieces with them. No notes, sketches, or anything else, and all the pre-made stuff you bring gets reviewed by a panel for fairness. Then it's off to the races, you've got to do the entire project in 20 minutes, live, in front of everyone at the same time, and then present your idea. Best person wins. So it's a balance of technical ability, design chops, and presentation skills that wins!

This being at Autodesk University, Autodesk's great get-together, the competitions were all focused on one of their tools. We were invited to participate in the Revit competition, up against heavy-hitters from HOK and Burt Hill, William Lopez Campo & Arman Chowdhury, two amazing people from amazing firms. One of which had already won one of these things in Germany. Stiff competition!

The design problem was to make a temporary pavilion at a French historic site: The Royal Salt Works of Claude Nicolas. Called 'Dangerous Liaisons' it was to help visitors encounter the site in new ways, inform and entertain them, while expressing the site's rich history, both Architecturally and culturally.

Here was the pitch for the judges: Salt crystals grow mathematically from a single introduced flaw, chaos controlled via structure. Supplanted by Culture & Tourism, Salt is no longer the power to France it once was. So we proposed that we turn the Salt Works into a Cultural Works for a summer by reviving the old factory buildings with the temporary installation a CNC router, and in turn fabricating onsite a whole series of elements to celebrate the site and the culture of France.

Not only a series of towers, a view platform, a bandshell, and cafe pavilions would be generated onsite, but also sellable designer products made from the scrap of the sustainable plywood left over.

No two of any of these items would be alike; for the use of parametricly-driven elements, consumer-driven customization, visiting designers-in-residence, and a simple randomizer script would make creating unique items easy and affordable.

The towers would collect power via draped solar panels, which in turn would drive a site-specific wifi network running an augmented reality application for common smart phones for the visitors to interact with.

This application would not only label everything onsite when viewed thru the smartphone, and show visual ghosts of what was to be historically, it would lead the assembly of the various elements via 2D barcode tags attached directly to the onsite fabricated parts. Thus turning the act of building into a celebratory group effort, a structure that wants to be built, and a new utopian model for our current times reflecting the original utopian ideals woven into the site and it’s history.

Finally, everything shown here is ready for CNC fabrication, right now, from this model, ready to go, and we made and brought along a prototype model to prove it! We really wanted to focus on something that was more build-able, less conceptual.

So the images you see here are nicer renderings and a slightly more detailed version of what we did on stage in 20 minutes. A very intense 20 minutes indeed!

Here's the image that Jeffrey created in the Design Slam itself, where he only had time to do one rendering.

We also have a video of it, and we'll post here on our blog again once the 'official' video goes live on the Cut&Paste site!

Also for those Revit heavies out there, we'll be following up with a more Revit-specific post about how we made the towers, complete with some Families for y'all to download and play with!