Custom Designed Furniture

We were commissioned by Cardiff Castle to design and build these bespoke pieces of furniture for use in their new visitor centre. The three items are an Art Trolley (for storing craft materials), a Puppet Theatre, and a Costume Rail. Standard versions of this type of furniture were available through catalogues but the client asked if we could design and build some unique, original pieces that reflected the nature of the building and its historical links with craftsmanship and detailed design (William Burgess). Each of the units is based on a distinctive element of the Castle architecture and is built from Oak faced Ply to co-ordinate with the existing wooden finishes in the Visitor Centre. The client was so pleased with the results they have very kindly agreed to let us feature their comments on the Testimonials page of this web site.

 Revolving Globe Display

The client for this project, Nottingham University wanted to create an eye catching icon that they could use as a marketing tool at various promotional events. To emphasize their strong overseas connections they wanted to visually portray their marketing strap line “Closing the Global Knowledge Gap” by creating a world globe made up from jigsaw shaped pieces with their logo as the final piece of the puzzle. We developed this brief from loose concept stage to a fully realized functional display that they could transport and set up easily themselves at any venue. We even threw in the idea of making the globe rotate slowly and up-lighting it from below to add extra visual impact. The globe itself was made from fiberglass (for strength and lightness) with a painted and lacquered finish.

 Perspex House Model – Scale 1:20

Produced for a major central heating system manufacturer, this set of three Perspex model houses was designed to illustrate the layout and main components of 3 different heating systems. The model houses were made from clear Perspex so that the viewer could see the position and relative sizes of all the major system components within the building walls. The models could be displayed individually or butted up against each other to create a “street” of typical houses. Whilst the houses are obviously a very stylized representation, the heating system hardware (boilers, cylinders, solar collectors, etc) is modeled to a fairly detailed level so that the units are instantly recognizable. Red and blue lines were used to indicate the hot and cold flow routes between the components.

Shipyard Model – 1:1250 Scale

Every now and then we are asked to turn around a project within a very tight deadline and this was a particularly demanding one with only 8 days to get the job done. The client was actually another model making company who, due to other commitments, didn’t have the capacity to do the whole job in the time available. So they commissioned us to produce the model base/landform whilst they created the ships, cranes, buildings, lights and other surface detail. Once we’d done our bit we “shipped” the base to them so that they could add all the detailed elements that bring the model to life. The model then had to be boxed up and sent to Libya. The developers were very pleased with the final result, particularly as it had been completed in 2 weeks. Typically a model this big would need at least 3 – 4 weeks to complete.

Floor Plan Model – 1:50 Scale

The client, one of the country’s biggest national home builders, asked us to create a model that showed the internal layout of a typical floor plan so that prospective purchasers could visualize the room spaces in the different apartment designs. This 1:50 scale model uses clean, white finishes and stylized representation of furniture/fittings to give the viewer an instant understanding of room usage and spatial organization.