Best Made Co. Shop at 36 White Street

Time Out's Best of NY:
"Best Shop for Ron Swanson Wanna-be's, Best Made Co."!

We were lucky enough to work with one of our favorite brands, crafting their flagship store at 36 White Street into a Ron-Swanson-ready space.

Best Made Company started with an unconventional idea: axes are a thing of beauty and utility, they can be celebrated and given real personality (and individual style). This simple idea has spawned a brand that now includes clothing, blankets, tools, bags, knives, enamelware, books, workshops and artwork.

Created by Peter Buchanan-Smith, a designer in New York originally from Canada, Best Made Company now releases a product a week under the banner of their mission:

Best Made Company® is dedicated to equipping customers with quality tools and dependable information that they can use and pass down for generations. We seek to empower people to get outside, use their hands and in doing so embark on a life of fulfilling projects and lasting experiences.

It's a powerful mission that has an impassioned following. And now they have a place to touch the brand.

The idea of working with Best Made was to create a space that could have always been there, not an agressive design but a naturally branded environment. Our understanding of the brand, our love of the idea and the products, and our easy collaboration with Best Made are on display at 36 White. The space is functionally crisp and efficient; a new mezzanine and catwalk, connected with a bare steel spiral stair from basement to upper level. The floating office mezzanine is hewn from unfinished steel and lumber from a 100 year old mill, with barely visible cables and steel grating that impart a sense of transparency to an otherwise solid exhibition of strength.

The shelving unit in the shop and the kitchen are a puzzle-like assembly of plywood slotted together without fasteners or glue; easy to move, easy to assemble again. It's the spirit of the camp inhabiting the shop.

Even the lighting is lovingly made of Best Made extension cords and vintage factory shades, and suspended from the pressed tin ceiling on magnets (a brilliant solution dreamed up by the guru's at Best Made).

The rich, dense gallery of a shop is pure Best Made...design in service of utility but with a style uniquely their own. Our work support the shop and the product, and is part of the space Best Made inhabits on a daily basis. We like to think it makes their work even better, just as theirs improves ours.