One year ago, the Foof Queens (Rocky, LuAnn, and Betty) came to 5forty design for help designing a new product. The Gift Gloss dispenser is the result of that collaboration. It is perfectly suited to their creative gifting style. More can be found on their website www.foofqueens.com which goes live Wednesday, August 19. Below and after the break are pictures of the ideation process, some renderings of an early version in various color schemes (including the glorious Maroon and Orange), and some pictures of one of the first production pieces.

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The design by 5forty design and Thom White, AIA, was selected by the Downtown Norfolk Council to be one of four Public Art Bicycle Racks to be installed in the Downtown district of Norfolk, Virginia. The DNC put out an RFP for four sculptural bike racks to be placed around the city to promote alternative forms of transportation, in anticipation of the 2010 arrival of the Tide light rail system. Our proposal speaks to both the nautical heritage of the port city and the future means of navigating the city by modes of transportation other than by car. The sculpture/bike racks are scheduled to be installed Spring 2010. Check out our proposal boards below!

The granite vanity has finally been installed in the Virginia Beach house. 5forty designed and built the frame for the architects at Grade, NYC who designed the house. It is steel tube with a custom acid etched finish that looks great with the slate floor. The top of the vanity is a single piece of black granite that weighs over 800 pounds. The walnut cabinetry was done by Crowder’s Custom Cabinets in Hampton, Virginia.

This vanity design uses one of the slabs of Acacia that has recently become available. It is comprised of a steel frame supporting the acacia, a porcelain basin sink, and frosted glass sides and doors for storage below. Fabrication will begin when a buyer is found.

This kitchen table is about 60% complete. It has a steel tube frame supporting two slabs of african mahogany. Down the center of the table are sections made of sheet steel over tube frames with the center basin section being removable. The benches are steel frames with a steel top and cushions supplied by the client.

Here’s a gallery of work from the last 5 years of 5forty. We’ll try to get some of these their own posts and galleries as time goes on.

The Cape Henry DNA sculpture was completed in September of 2007, but was previously unposted. Here it is in all of its glory. The DNA sculpture is made of laser-cut anodized aluminum sheet for the base pairs and machined aluminum rods representing the chemical bonds. The sculpture is 12 feet long and about 3 feet in diameter. It is comprised of approximately 5,000 parts and is suspended from a 7 foot square skylight over a stairwell. It took us most of a day working at the top of fully-extended 28′ ladders, to attach the custom anchors and raise the sculpture into position.

The teak tables and file storage unit are now complete. The teak slabs were obtained from Exotic Home located across Granby St. from the 5forty studio and the Jatoba is from Yukon Lumber. The tables are simple slabs of teak bolted to welded steel frames of 2″ square tube with a 120 grit flap-wheel finish. The file storage unit has a welded steel tube frame with planks of Jatoba bolted to the top. The storage unit has two cabinets, two custom-made legal-size file racks, and two 8 inch drawers. The cabinet doors and drawer fronts are bent cold-rolled steel sheet with their original mill finish.