Over the course of much of 2018, I advised in various capacities on the design and build out of Middle Brow Bungalow, the brew pub from Middle Brow Brewery that opened earlier this year. This culminated in the design and fabrication of benches for their communal tables, as well as two cantilevered banquettes. The communal seating benches are based on my "split seat" design that I've explored in various pieces of furniture, including the Provisional Chair that was designed specifically for Cellar Door Provisions. It allows for the seat surface to be a bit cozier without any additional shaping of the wood, and it also allows the furniture to be built using smaller pieces of wood without glueing anything up. Cutting out those steps means it's a simpler and easier build process. Similarly, there's only one cut that is not 90 degrees. The wood itself is reclaimed mid-century douglas fir procured from Great Lakes Yard, one of the finest purveyors of salvage wood in the Midwest.

A stack of the “split benches” for Middle Brow in progress

For the cantilevered banquette seating, we wanted something that would be a bit of a curvier contrast, so I designed something that would require the use of a CNC router, which my fabrication assistant extraordinaire - Andi Crist - had just learned how to use at the Polsky Exchange in Hyde Park. A single shape would be cut out of sheets of plywood dozens of time to make up the profile of the seat, mounted to sections of plywood backing, then mounted to blocking on masonry walls.

Andi rocking the fussiest of fussy CNC programs

the engineering strategy here is redundancy

After that, we then covered the cantilevered panels in slats that were milled from leftover red pine from the Edward Hines National Forest sculpture by Sara Black and Raewyn Martyn that we had worked on the previous year. Middle Brow gave the slats a nice white wash and we then went to town with giving the seat some skin. Afterwards, they covered them in beautful and cozy pillows that set everything off just right.