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| Freecell is an open organism that absorbs, processes, and grows from outside influences and resources. The studio grew out of a need to engage physically with materials and mechanics to solve problems, and it is with this formula that we have created installations, designed exhibitions, and fabricated furniture for over ten years. We strive to create site-specific, three-dimensional installations that transform and question the use and perception of space. |
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 The installation is a frozen moment and a scheme for what is to come. Two out of a thousand paths are drawn in space. Movements of music, dance, and geometry are expressed as lines punctuated by points. These points are constructed of complex mirrored pieces of geometry that capture and reflect the sun from the skylight above.
The constructed pathways begin as a regularized hexagonal grid fit to the dimensions of the ribbed concrete wall of the original Guzzetta Hall. This construction provides a place for connection so the work can be hung. The two pathways reach from the concrete wall in a branched modulation, bending away from and towards new connection points. The work, generated with scripted geometry, is 23 feet high, 11 feet wide, and 10 feet deep. It is constructed out of aluminum tube, waterjet cut plate, and polished stainless steel reflectors. Our interest in the work and our search for form comes from a desire to express movement and sound. We looked to Wassily Kandinsky's seminal text Point to Line to Plane to frame the work within a critical context. Point to Line is installed in Guzzetta Hall in the School of Dance, Theater, and Arts Administration at The University of Akron and was funded by the Ohio Arts Council. Peter Dorsey helped Freecell with its development. A text on the project, in PDF format, is available HERE. |
Can you imagine a heart in Times Square lifted and held by the communal spirit of people? The Times Square Alliance commissioned us to realize their 2011 Valentine, and thousands of people helped us lift the heart from February 10th to the 20th. Lighthearted was a ten-foot diameter lightweight construction with an open weave fabric that allowed wind to pass through, but still captured and reflected light. The frame was made of lightweight aluminum tube that formed curvilinear volumes in the top half of the lobe and a triangulated frame on the lower half. These lobes rotated about a ring that allowed the heart to transform from its closed DOWN position to an open UP position.
Without volunteers, the heart lays flat on the ground, looking more like a flower. But when the group lifted the structure it became a heart! This communal activity, with participants' arms lifting above their heads, encouraged short exchanges among strangers with the telling of names and hometowns. The space below the floating heart and encircled by the participants defined a new room that was within but separate from Times Square. Lighthearted was designed in collaboration with Peter Dorsey. |
 To be in and between, below and on, puffy formations of water vapor is as impossible as it is desirable. This experience is the intention behind Cumulus, a pneumatic installation of bulging volumes which squeeze and release space, allowing the adventurous to transform their sense of elevation and gravity. Using resources wisely, the pneumatic structures achieve their mass with air powered by solar energy. In bright sunlight the clouds would be fully inflated, creating a firm bulbous volume and much desired shade. As the temperature rises, the clouds become heavy, letting loose a light rain through a system of sprayers. With the loss of sunlight or the presence of clouds, the volumes would decrease in air pressure and lose their rigidity. The shade canopy alters in form to become thin sheets draped across the tensile structure, suspended above. As the sun sets and the evening arrives, the volumes become flaccid with air while light emitting diodes illuminate the volumes from within. In the main courtyard, the cloud formations crowd and loom to create a variety of places. In the smaller court the volumes lay low, creating clouds to rest and recline on. The shaping of the ground, both the ground itself and the changing canopy above, transforms one's sense of altitude and horizon, accentuating the feeling of being on top of a mountain within the plane of the clouds. |
 Freecell was commissioned by the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art to design and produce a piece for the exhibition entitled The Art of Participation: 1950 to Now at SFMOMA which was open from November 8, 2008, to February 8, 2009. Stack to Fold responds to our interest in issues of interpretation and function. It is constructed from corrugated cardboard sheets and consists of four flat patterns that, when folded, allow people to construct their own environment. The patterns are die cut and printed with graphic illustrations to instruct the user during assembly. Museum visitors were invited to construct multiples of these four elements. The primary elements can be combined in prescribed ways to create specific functional furniture, such as a bench or table. However, the objects, which consist of related geometric joints, can be connected in other combinations, as per the imagination of the participant. These interpreted assemblies will create abstract spatial situations in the gallery for visitors to occupy. |
 As an opportunity to explore the play of the natural within the artificial, we constructed a three-dimensional steel matrix inset with panels of living mosses and enclosed within by translucent volume. The matrix emerges from the walls and hovers over a groundscape of recycled rubber, which is as springy and giving underfoot as the mosses are to the touch of a hand. The spatial configurations of these verdant planes vary in size, height and proximity to the visitor, thus creating a range of possible encounters. There is no designated path to follow, but instead present a space to explore where the underside is as telling as the topside. MoistSCAPE allows visitors to experience the play in scale from the miniature of the floating mossy landscape to the actual one of the installation as a whole. Exhibited at the Henry Urbach Gallery in |
 Volumes are set into a surface. This surface and its supporting structural system create various spaces and levels for participants to explore. A relationship of open space to its structure is exemplified; the simple sustained by the complex. Use of the spaces, both within and beneath the constructed surface, is implied rather than explicit to encourage participants to imagine possible activities. Private and collective experiences are created through the proportion and location of the spaces. Beneath was commissioned by the Artist Space in New York NY and also exhibited at the BEB Gallery at the Rhode Island School of Design, Providence RI in 2002. |
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 Why waste time and fuel driving to a chain grocery store to purchase globally shipped vegetables when you can walk a couple of blocks and get local fresh, organic vegetables instead? We reconsidered the primacy of the lawn and replaced grass with agriculture, creating a suburban farm that can grow hundreds of pounds of produce which can then be sold to the local community. In the backyard a greenhouse grows kale in the winter and sprouts seeds in the spring. Most of the yard becomes a farm on which large tracts of irrigated soil grow hundreds of plants. This piece was exhibited as part of Open House, an excerpt of the project brief is below: Open House by Droog led by Diller Scofidio + Renfro is a movement in which suburban homeowners supplement their income and develop a new vocation by offering homemade services and facilities to the public. This new residential marketplace not only brings more capital and density to the neighborhood, but also increases social cohesion through service exchange. |
 Inside/Out was an exhibition in New York NY at the C.F.A. Gallery, from September 19, 2007 to January 8, 2008, on interiors exemplifying a range of typologies. The curator, Lois Weinthal, defines the exhibited projects as fully integrated interiors that consider light, color, and materiality, and use new ways of programming space, the latest technological advances, innovative methods of construction and green practices. Corn based plastic is used in the exhibition as an eco-friendly material at a tangible scale. The curator's organizational framework inspired Freecell and Claudia Brandenberg of Language Arts, the graphic designer, to make a three-dimensional matrix in which one could physically see and see-through the projects stimulating connections between the themes. These slots were inserted between the projects to encourage dynamic interpretation and extraction of the vast content. Floor dots locate visitors in perspective vantage points to see through the spaces while maintaining a navigational point. The open, stratified layout encourages people to walk freely through the exhibition generating their own curatorial experience. |
 In 2006 the League asked Freecell to design the environment for the ball with the theme of DOT DOT DOT. Since the transformation would span only one evening, our desire was to find a system which provided stunning visual impact with minimal resources. The space, a 10,000 square foot warehouse on 126th Street, was vast and daunting, so the intervention had to have a potent effect. The raw space needed to satisfy the spatial requirements of the formal ball, including a dance floor, multiple bars, casual lounges, table sitting area, coat check, and pathways to connect them all. For the 3000 square feet of programmed space, the floor was resurfaced to be smooth and gray with a neon orange stripe defining the edge. Inspired by the city's gridiron and building's columnar structure which give measure and scale to space, we chose to use a grid. For the remaining 7000 square feet, a 12 inch by 12 inch grid was established out of heavy cord, which ran just under the plane of the ceiling. A 14 foot string ran from the ceiling to the floor, and a single neon orange bead was tied at eye level. Tethered to the 40 columns of the space were vertical fluorescent lights with UV emitting black-light bulbs, causing all the beads to glow. The strings bounced and swayed as people moved through them; black light caused the beads and the myriad congregation of dot-themed outfits to glow. |
 Four cities were explored by artists examining the phenomenon of urban decline. Projects included a worldwide study of urban depopulation, the change of urban landscapes, everyday practices, and political conflicts under decline. We divided the floor into two spaces with a narrow connector which housed the Urban Scan videos. The front space was filled with illuminated cylinders displaying maps which were hung at eye level, enveloping the gallery viewer into a space where boundaries receded and information intensified. The walls of both galleries were lined with an industrial white mesh similar to those used on construction and demolition sites. Openings were cut to reveal the wall where the art was hung and videos were projected. The mesh made new divisions within the galleries creating separation, and conversely creating connections through the scrim's gridded openings. This exhibition was simultaneously on view at the Van Alen Institute and Pratt Institute Gallery in |
 The space is enveloped with color, immersing gallery viewers into one clear spatial volume. We created a public lounge providing a new experience of known space by selectively reducing the existing visual information. The strategic elimination of the wood floor and emphasis of the building systems (sprinkler pipe and air duct patterns) references the infrastructure systems of the city: wrapping, weaving, and organizing. Displaying information and imagery, a billboard wraps the space, cantilevering from the wall and projecting around corners. The front window signage attracts people from the street, but on the inside its reverse text acknowledges the relationship of being a part of a larger collective. The exhibition's graphic designers were Flat. June to October 2003, Van Alen Institute, New York NY January to May 2005, National Building Museum, Washington DC January to May 2006, C.A.F., Chicago IL |
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 Tishman Speyer extensively restored and renovated Walter Gropius's Pan Am Building at 200 Park Avenue, now known as the MetLife Building. Abutting Grand Central Terminal and sitting over rail lines, the renovation included the sidewalk and the sidewalk furniture. Freecell was asked to design and produce two exterior drinking bars to serve the outdoor cafes. Our choices of material and form were directly influenced by the adjacency to this important modern icon. The first bar was for The Beer Bar restaurant and the second for Naples 45 restaurant. Both are free-standing with 360-degree accessibility for maximum capacity of barstools, as well as providing staff access for serving guests at the surrounding tables. In plan the bars are a rectangular ring; the two long sides have a thickened section in the shape of a C and are the location for bar stools. This section, designed to fit proportionally to a person on a stool, provides a top horizontal plane as the bar surface, a vertical middle panel of stretched stainless steel screen, and a bottom horizontal as a foot rest. The two short sides of the bars are accessible to the waiters and enclose large appliances. Both bars were designed with careful consideration for the necessary equipment: a bottle refrigerator, a tap and keg, touch-screen registers, and glass storage. The bars are constructed entirely out of stainless steel, chosen for its durability against weather and wear as well as its capacity to reflect the life of the sidewalk. The stretched screen, typically used as an industrial filter, adds an additional level of detail and balance to the brushed surfaces. |
 Y-Interact's meeting area needed a new table that we fabricated. The surface is a stretched white rubber supported by a blackened-steel triangulated base. A series of Ys in the base's geometry give uniqueness. One of its custom features is the integration of outlets on the tabletop so clients can always plug in their laptops. |
 The Bookcave's form lifts off the floor and bends overhead out of sight. The structure is an armature of bent steel conduit, a trade material used to build exterior awning supports. The two foot wide modules can join to form bookcaves of varying lengths. The armature's shape creates the space by arching away from its supporting wall. The final bend near the floor, a place to sit and read, forms a bench padded with foam. |
 The needs of tight living spaces are met with a simple dual purpose form. In an attempt to satisfy both the temporary need for seating and the constant need for storage, nine stools act as covers for compartmentalized wall shelves. Personal objects can be stored in the voids within the glossy chamfered boxes, giving additional function to the hanging infrastructure. Measuring approximately 16 inches square, the stools have lacquered steel feet that lift them off the floor. The body of the stool sits flush against the wall-hung shelving when the feet are inserted into the corresponding grid of holes. |
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 This book was prepared for a talk given by Freecell at Harvard's Graduate School of Design in 2011. It contains eleven urban and landscape projects to inspire the making of new ideas, not to exhibit solutions. It identifies strategies of invention. Ground and City Adaptations asks everyone to observe and change their surroundings, empowering individuals to design and fabricate. The projects presented are design reactions to perceived problems or untapped opportunities. Some are DIY solutions that can be realized in an afternoon, others would take years of negotiating and convincing civic agencies to adopt change. But both present latent solutions to everyday problems. The ideas presented are to form questions and to stimulate the development of solutions.
63-page book is available at LULU for $10 |
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 Our map attempts to represent the ethnic diversity throughout the five boroughs through architectural icons. We mapped the locations of twenty four ethnic groups in the city from the database provided by WNYC. The drawing uses the extrusion of each ethnic boundary to form a collection of building prototypes and monuments associated with each group. We depicted each ethnic neighborhood with its respective vernacular or contemporary architecture found in the home country. The buildings are color-coded and labeled with flags that can be read and identified in the key at the top of the map. In the process of drawing the map, the densities of groups begin to inform clusters of small ethnic structures. Entwining conditions pop up in and around the city as the Great Wall runs through the Greek Islands and around a bit of German modernism. With the explosion of groups at disparate parts of the city, paths connect structure to structure to identify a common ethnicity within the complex network that is New York. The show's audio is available HERE.
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Freecell joined forces with Peter Dorsey to develop an entry for the Van Alen Institute's Life at the Speed of Rail competition. We are happy to announce that it received an honorable mention. See project text below:
Press Release. Newark, New Jersey. October 12, 2025. New Jersey Transit Authority officials today released plans to construct the first of several Tower Stations along the newly completed Atlantic Speed Rail Conduit, which runs parallel to the Northeast Corridor in the garden state. The new stations will allow the 380km/h train to collect and disperse passengers, without stopping, or even slowing down, along its path from Washington to Boston. New Jerseyans have long critiqued the speed rail system making use of state land between destination cities without allowing local access to commuters. The ASRC has justifiably argued that if the train were to stop frequently at smaller towns between destination points, it would add time to the overall commute and ultimately undermine the goals of the speed rail project. The deployment of Tower Stations along the route will finally resolve this conflict, and keep the travel time between Washington and Boston at 2hr and 10min. Governor Lewis is quoted as saying "New Jersey will lead the world into the future of high speed transit." How does it work? As the train approaches the tower it ejects the specially designed pods that, with the help of gravity, will quickly decelerate as it travels to the tower's summit. At the peak, the departure pod transfers to a parallel track leading to a town center where passengers will disembark. In reverse action, arrival pods reach a calibrated velocity from tower descension and are absorbed into the speeding train. The tower's electronic control and monitoring center is housed at the apex, as well as a tourist destination that offsets operating costs while providing unprecedented panoramic views. Construction is scheduled to be completed by early 2027. |
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 Freecell was founded in 1999 as a design and fabrication studio that strives to allow a gamut of interests to influence its work. Our team has a diverse skill set that includes design, fabrication, photography, and drawing.People: Lauren Crahan John Hartmann Warren Aftahi Jacqueline Lavin We have recently completed custom furniture for the fashion designer Alexander Wang and the interior fixtures for the new West Village jewelry store Vasa. We also managed the interior design of the Diesel Black Gold store in SoHo. We work with wood, plastic, and metal and strive to engage vigorously in a process to search for creative and innovative solutions. We are located in the historic Bush Terminal Complex in Sunset Park, Brooklyn. Please don't hesitate to contact us about time-sensitive creative projects. We love challenges. Send us a note at studio(at)frcll(dot)com, or give us a call at 718-643-4180, and we may be able to help. |
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Freecell Those seeking job opportunities can submit a five page PDF that includes a cover letter, resume, and three work samples to: jobs(at)frcll(dot)com |