Hey! My name is Charlotte Wiederholt and I love what I do! I am the Director of TangramStudio - we are a team of industrial designers and engineers that bring the concepts and visions of other designers, architects and our clients into reality. We strive to fulfill the needs of our clients by creating custom office furniture solutions, where the "off the shelf" products fall short. I hope to share some stories of the exciting projects we are so lucky to work on each and every day!Hey! My name is Charlotte Wiederholt and I love what I do! I am the Director of TangramStudio - we are a team of industrial designers and engineers that bring the concepts and visions of other designers, architects and our clients into reality. We strive to fulfill the needs of our clients by creating custom office furniture solutions, where the "off the shelf" products fall short. I hope to share some stories of the exciting projects we are so lucky to work on each and every day!Main Entry: door
Pronunciation: ˈdȯr
Function: noun
Usage: often attributive
Etymology: Middle English dure, dor, from Old English duru door & dor gate; akin to Old High German turi door, Latin fores, Greek thyra
Date: before 12th century
1: a usually swinging or sliding barrier by which an entry is closed and opened;
also: a similar part of a piece of furniture
2: DOORWAY
3: a means of access or participation : OPPORTUNITY [opens new doors] [door to success]
— door·less -ləs adjective
— at one's door : as a charge against one as being responsible [laid the blame at our door]
Ironically when I looked up "door" in the Webster Dictionary one of the definitions was an opportunity. Which is a good way to look at our most recent custom office furniture project, an opportunity to create something new. A client came to us with the typical request for an 8' x 8' workstation. The usual challenges were inherent in the request: two monitors, shelf, cockpit surface, 60" high panels. Then came a request for a door. Sure it seems easy enough. Think of how many successful doors we pass through every day, the doors to our homes, office, the coffee shop, the restaurant, every time we use the bathroom there are multiple doors. Armed with the confidence from the door we had create for SCAN Health Plan we said, "Yes! We can create a door."
So we researched every sliding door in Southern California and Northern Maine (Jeremy's domain). The mountain to climb got a lot steeper when our client asked for no upper track, or lower track on the ground to guide the door, and it had to be smooth and refined feeling. How do we create a door in four weeks with off the shelf parts without a track system that is smooth and refined. We surmised that the success would all be in the tolerances and the wheels or bearings used in the doors.
We set out on an exhaustive search for wheels/bearings. Jeremy and Brad concocted a detailed set of Z brackets and U channels to allow the door to slide and have the structure & rigidity required so that the door wouldn’t roll off into the aisle way. Again back to the wheels or bearings. Jeremy found a pair of his wife's roller blades in the garage and took them apart to see if the wheels would work. Low and behold the wheels were smooth and perfect with and amazing bearing. Where do we find 300 roller blade wheels? On his way back from lunch one day Brad stopped in Wal-Mart to looks for roller blades wheels for our mock up - $2.25 later he was on his way with two new beautiful wheels with that perfect bearing. These became the bottom off the door. In the end we sourced the wheels from an inline skate shop just north of the San Fernando Valley; we cleaned out their stock.
The last item to complete were the vertical interior wheels. They couldn’t exceed .875" in diameter or .25" in height to work with the clearance required. Back to the internet. Brad came across a shower door replacement company. Shower doors roll on very small nylon wheels with a metal hub - perfect!
With wheels in hand, completed engineering drawings, all tolerance and brackets worked out to within 1/16" and our vendor fabricated the prototype. Reckoning day came...the door was to be assembled and tested. Will it work? Did we consider all the tolerances? Will it be strong? Will it stay in line? Will it be smooth? Heck will it even go together? Low and behold it went together and worked! The door slid beautifully, the tolerance were spot on, the unit could self level. We had done it! Except for the horrible clicking/clanking sound of the wheels!!! Ahh the agony!!! Where was the noise coming from? The wheels rubbing? Were the Z brackets acting as a reverberation chamber? How do we solve it? We narrowed it down to the nylon shower wheels. After days of searching for new wheels, sound dampening/absorbing materials we settled on a possible combination of felt, and Velcro to smooth the roll of the wheel and deaden the sounds. Back to the metal fabricators to re-set up the door. After hours of rolling, listening, removing the door and installing additional sound dampening solutions without success, Marko who works in the shop at our local metal vendor (we always try to create locally manufactured office furniture) came in with an O ring for faucets. We installed these under our shower wheels. It was blissful silence…the door rolled smooth and quiet.
We created a door - an opportunity - fabricated with sport equipment, bathroom hardware, a few O rings and sheet metal.
Pronunciation: ˈdȯr
Function: noun
Usage: often attributive
Etymology: Middle English dure, dor, from Old English duru door & dor gate; akin to Old High German turi door, Latin fores, Greek thyra
Date: before 12th century
1: a usually swinging or sliding barrier by which an entry is closed and opened;
also: a similar part of a piece of furniture
2: DOORWAY
3: a means of access or participation : OPPORTUNITY [opens new doors] [door to success]
— door·less -ləs adjective
— at one's door : as a charge against one as being responsible [laid the blame at our door]
Ironically when I looked up "door" in the Webster Dictionary one of the definitions was an opportunity. Which is a good way to look at our most recent custom office furniture project, an opportunity to create something new. A client came to us with the typical request for an 8' x 8' workstation. The usual challenges were inherent in the request: two monitors, shelf, cockpit surface, 60" high panels. Then came a request for a door. Sure it seems easy enough. Think of how many successful doors we pass through every day, the doors to our homes, office, the coffee shop, the restaurant, every time we use the bathroom there are multiple doors. Armed with the confidence from the door we had create for SCAN Health Plan we said, "Yes! We can create a door."
So we researched every sliding door in Southern California and Northern Maine (Jeremy's domain). The mountain to climb got a lot steeper when our client asked for no upper track, or lower track on the ground to guide the door, and it had to be smooth and refined feeling. How do we create a door in four weeks with off the shelf parts without a track system that is smooth and refined. We surmised that the success would all be in the tolerances and the wheels or bearings used in the doors.
We set out on an exhaustive search for wheels/bearings. Jeremy and Brad concocted a detailed set of Z brackets and U channels to allow the door to slide and have the structure & rigidity required so that the door wouldn’t roll off into the aisle way. Again back to the wheels or bearings. Jeremy found a pair of his wife's roller blades in the garage and took them apart to see if the wheels would work. Low and behold the wheels were smooth and perfect with and amazing bearing. Where do we find 300 roller blade wheels? On his way back from lunch one day Brad stopped in Wal-Mart to looks for roller blades wheels for our mock up - $2.25 later he was on his way with two new beautiful wheels with that perfect bearing. These became the bottom off the door. In the end we sourced the wheels from an inline skate shop just north of the San Fernando Valley; we cleaned out their stock.The last item to complete were the vertical interior wheels. They couldn’t exceed .875" in diameter or .25" in height to work with the clearance required. Back to the internet. Brad came across a shower door replacement company. Shower doors roll on very small nylon wheels with a metal hub - perfect!
With wheels in hand, completed engineering drawings, all tolerance and brackets worked out to within 1/16" and our vendor fabricated the prototype. Reckoning day came...the door was to be assembled and tested. Will it work? Did we consider all the tolerances? Will it be strong? Will it stay in line? Will it be smooth? Heck will it even go together? Low and behold it went together and worked! The door slid beautifully, the tolerance were spot on, the unit could self level. We had done it! Except for the horrible clicking/clanking sound of the wheels!!! Ahh the agony!!! Where was the noise coming from? The wheels rubbing? Were the Z brackets acting as a reverberation chamber? How do we solve it? We narrowed it down to the nylon shower wheels. After days of searching for new wheels, sound dampening/absorbing materials we settled on a possible combination of felt, and Velcro to smooth the roll of the wheel and deaden the sounds. Back to the metal fabricators to re-set up the door. After hours of rolling, listening, removing the door and installing additional sound dampening solutions without success, Marko who works in the shop at our local metal vendor (we always try to create locally manufactured office furniture) came in with an O ring for faucets. We installed these under our shower wheels. It was blissful silence…the door rolled smooth and quiet.
We created a door - an opportunity - fabricated with sport equipment, bathroom hardware, a few O rings and sheet metal.
KPCC was a project that started long ago in the world of custom office furniture. It was four years ago when I first attended a meeting at the architecture firm, Chu + Gooding. When I arrived at their office I could barely concentrate on the task at hand due to the lollapalooza of interesting mock-ups, posters, magazine images and samples that adorned the walls of their studio. I may have appeared distracted or come across as rude, but it was a feast for the eyes and mind.We had been asked to their fabulous office to discuss the development of custom workstations for a new space in Pasadena to be occupied by the public radio station, 89.3 KPCC. The architect, Annie, was looking to create a space with "non-cubicle" and "non-corporate" looking workstations and sustainable office furniture. She and I began sketching and talking about materials, the space itself and how the client wanted their space to function.
On the back wall of the studio there was the most perfect triangular piece of white wool felt pinned to the wall. She mentioned that she had come across the felt while in Norway. Ahh, inspiration! I mentioned that we at TangramStudio were having a love affair with felt. After all, what's not to love about a warm, textural material that is made from recycled sweaters? The question then became - how could we use this sublime, natural, acoustical, tack-able and environmentally friendly material? Since it feels somewhat warm like a blanket, we immediately thought about wrapping the panels with it. We designed a panel wrap that would wrap from under the surface, up around the top to create a soft, radiused top cap.
As we worked our way through the design concept, Annie pushed for a creative way to combine the functional items required in a workstation. The client had requested overhead cabinets. These usually end up creating an oppressive, heavy datum line that dominates the space. So to reduce this effect, we designed the spine panels so that our installation crew could install the overheads at random, varying heights. This created an undulating cityscape appearance in the space.All of these design elements seemed easy except for the felt panels. How were we to affix the felt to the panel? What kind of felt...neddled or felted? How thick...F-7 or f-15? How should it be cut...water jet, laser or saw? Luckily, there is a felt mill close by our office (we strive to use locally manufactured office furniture whenever possible). After three wrong turns and two phone calls, we found the non-descript building that housed all of the answers we were looking for. Inside was every imaginable felt available. Rolls after rolls, 6 inches high to 96 inches high. There were all of the colors - white, grey, green (for lizard cages), dark grey (for trunk liners).
There were multiple rounds of gluing, cutting and stretching of the felt until we had a material that could slide into a track/frame system. The end result involved the felt being bolted to the metal panels. This also added to the sustainability of the new workstations. If the felt would to become soiled, it could be removed by simply removing four bolts and pulling it off the panel. This way, the felt could be sent back to the mill and placed in the hopper for recycling.
Our love affair with felt continues...
I just got back to the Studio from an afternoon of prototyping felt tack panels at our upholsterer. For one of our current custom office furniture projects, the architect has a desire to create interior tack panels with horizontal stripes. The inspiration comes from a British carpet manufacturer. They offer a line of thick, nubby, horizontal-striped carpet. It's really quite beautiful.
So how do we replicate a similar feel within the custom workstations? The architect suggested wicking felt, stacked horizontally. We attempted to sew 1/2" diameter wicking felt tubes to a felt backer. It was a bit like trying to squeeze a bubble. Needless to say, we had to go in an alternate direction.
However, felt has a great warm textural feel. We love felt! It's a "green" material (sustainable office furniture is something that we always try to incorporate into our projects) that has this fantastic organic/industrial/warm feeling all in one. Who would have thought all of that would be possible in one material? So I stopped by our felt vendor in Placentia (locally manufactured office furniture is another key to Studio projects) to obtain several sheets of felt.
Now, how could we take plain, flat felt sheets and begin to fold and sew them to create depth and pattern? There are so many options and possibilities when it comes to sewing: the manipulation of the felt sheets, the stitching, layering of strips - all interesting and full of possibilities.
We arrived at a possible solution. Gustavo, the factory manager, refurbishes old vintage cars. He suggested we treat the felt panels like vintage car seats - curved, detailed stitching, piping - picture a 1959 Impala or a 1965 Falcon. We landed on a 3/4" diameter piping strip stacked horizontally with a felt cover. Gustavo and I set out to the sewing machines to see if this would work. By horizontally stacking the piping and stitching it between two layers of felt I think we have a close facsimile to the British carpet!Do you have a project that you are trying to incorporate something unique into? Let TangramStudio know - we would love to co-create something with you for your office design layout!
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