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Lauren Crahan, one of the four members of the Brooklyn firm Freecell, doesn't like to assign a date to the group's founding. As she detailed the connections between various members, her partner Troy Ostrander (second from right) put marker to paper and diagrammed a sort of timeline with tributaries representing himself, Lauren, and the third founding partner, John Hartmann (left), swooping in to join the primary channel and then branching off again. The diagram takes in the various schools they attended (Hartmann alone went to three), and the various working arrangements they've found themselves in since then. The latest includes the addition of a fourth partner, Corey Yurkovich (right).

previous image | next image Verb Media Offices New York, 2003 A serpentine cabinet separates public and working areas in this office design. The public side presents a clean face, while the back serves as storage. Quilted curtains move to partition the space. Horodniceanu Residence New York, 2003 To make the most of limited space, Freecell designed a Murphy bed that disappears behind a pivoting section of an attached couch. Curved shelving smooths out an angular entry hall, opening up to provide access to storage behind. Audio Cube A listening space is constructed from stacked cardboard bales. The entrances are acoustically sealed with vinyl strips. Beneath This gallery installation explores the tension between the pure, finished space above and the unfinished, structural space below. Grass-scape Installed in the corridors of the Javits convention center, this natural grass was intended to reconnect convention goers with nature. Shortwave This design for a small bookstore for an independent publisher allows the store to keep overstock overhead, books for sale at eye level, and seating near the ground. Click here to see the firm's product design. Photography © Freecell

Freecell's present form defies easy description as much as its history does. The firm's product design was featured in RECORD last month [RECORD February, 2003], but all four members were trained as architects and continue to pursue projects like those pictured on these pages.

"It's not that we don't want to do architecture," Crahan says. "It's that we always want to put ourselves in a position that allows us to do what we want to do next. Maybe we'll do a traditional architectural project, and the next day we'll cut out a prototype for a piece of furniture or design a Web site. Our drive is to not feel trapped within a role that we've already defined for ourselves."

Ostrander adds: "We're trying to avoid the typical office: the day-to-day administration, the endless CAD, the 10-hour day."

The four share a studio in a converted warehouse in Brooklyn's Dumbo neighborhood, near the waterfront. Their space reflects their do-it-yourself attitude: They are constantly tinkering with the office (the recent addition of the studio next door has doubled their work space and given rise to projects such as new bookshelves and a convenient pull-out tray for the coffee machine), and half of the office is given over to the workshop where they build most of their products, their gallery installations, and components of their architectural projects. The workshop has served variously as a room for painting, a greenhouse, and a wood shop.
All of this variety keeps the quartet from getting bored and constantly pushes their work in new directions. They are currently courting a client for what would be their first freestanding building, but aside from designing actual buildings, Freecell's destination as a design firm remains an enigma.

"Our working process is just to try to figure out what next step will lead to whatever the big picture is," Crahan says. "What is the big picture?
I don't know."

Ostrander suggests one answer: "It's fame, isn't it?"

By Kevin Lerner