Contexture Interview: Repurpose, recreate, rejoice

Contexture is a multidisciplinary design firm composed of three complimentary departments: workshop (product design and fabrication), studio (graphic art and design), and fieldwork (landscape design and illustration). Founding partners Nathan Lee and Trevor Coghill are graduates of the University of British Columbia's Landscape Architecture program. The design duo's work emphasizes simple, elegant and sustainable design, and is often inspired by reclaimed materials with historical, cultural or environmental significance.

Contexture's Nathan Lee kindly answered a few questions about the duo and their projects among which the New York Times anointed "Coffee Cup".

How did Contexture come to be?

Trevor and I have been friends for a while. We met in high school, and eventually both ended up in the Landscape Architecture program at the University of British Columbia. We worked together on a couple of summer projects while finishing our degrees, and ended up moonlighting as designers while we held down non-design related day-jobs. Our creative interests broadened and we applied our design skills to new projects in different media. We both ended up quitting our desk jobs days shy of our 30th birthdays to officially start a career in design and we haven't looked back.

Why repurposed material? What's the message behind?

With our background in Landscape Architecture, the concept of sustainability has always come second nature to us. We approach design with that in mind, but for us the materials themselves have always proved to be an important source of inspiration, particularly if they have historic, cultural or environmental significance. The message of upcycling is always there, but we think of it more in terms of waste and unused potential than "green design". Like in the dustbowl of the Great Depression people found uses for the things around them, not because it was sustainable, but because every object had potential and if it couldn't be used for it's designed purpose, it could be used for something else. Throwing things away wasn't really an option and waste was a dirty word.

What has been your most rewarding moment so far?

Having our Coffee Cuff featured in the New York Times Style Magazine was a pretty rewarding. We didn't want to jinx it, so we hadn't told a lot of people that it was coming out. My dad had recently gotten a subscription to the Times and had taken up the hobby of flipping through the design section looking for stuff to show me so he could say "you should make something like that!" It was his way of being supportive. I remember getting a phone call from him when he came across our work. That was a pretty great moment.

Among your projects, do you have a favourite, one that has special significance to you?

This is a tough one, I like them all for different reasons.

"As the Crow Flies" hanging mobile is our newest product so we're still in the honeymoon phase of our relationship. I like this project for its simplicity; at the same time it conveys a complex idea. Crows create a surprisingly emotional family portrait. They mate for life, live in family groups, and even though their offspring may travel the country and live in other cities, they often return to visit. We used maps from across the continent as a building material to reflect the universality of this phenomenon and the distances these birds travel.

The Coffee Cuff has been very good to us. It's a cheeky product, I guess that's what I like about it. It's great seeing someone pick up this sculptural item and watch the pieces fall together as they try to figure out what it's for. Is it a handmade coffee sleeve? Is it jewelry? You can actually see it on their faces when they realize it's both.

I'm a fan of 45 iPod cases because the materials are so appropriate. There is an obvious connection between 7-inch records, cassette tapes, and iPods as music media, but they are also very similar in proportion. For example, the clickwheel of an iPod is exactly the same diameter of the hole in a 7-inch record. The similarities don't end there.

What is the most challenging aspect of your work?

Reclaimed materials are a source of inspiration, but they can also be a source of frustration. It's always challenging finding a reliable source of materials that are available on the scale that gives a project longevity. It takes a much more hands-on approach to manufacturing because everything has to be hand-picked and there are often inconsistencies in materials. Not all cassette tapes for instance are made of the same type of plastic, and all plastics behave differently. It's challenges like this that can keep our production scale modest. That being said, the materials are where all the ideas come from, so it's a bit of a trade off.

What are your plans for the next few months?

We're always working on new stuff. We've got a few projects under development that we'd love to see released in the next year, but in the meantime we're looking forward to a busy holiday season.

Why did you put your shoe size on the site? Are you on the market for shoes?

One of our first projects was "hockey's". We were taking a Canadian icon, old leather hockey skates, and rebuilding them into street boots. They never made it into production, but when it came time to post our bios we figured our boots were a good place to start. They said as much about us as anything else so we thought some stats might flesh things out a bit. Thankfully, the stats ended there.