House Beautiful , October 2006
The Best!

TABLE & BENCH
Picnic set meets Erector Set–but easier to put together. Birch plywood and laminate, in four colors, by Scott Klinker. Truss A-Frame table $589, and bench $349. CONTEXT; www.contextfurniture.com

Architectural Record, September 2006
Product Briefs ICFF

TRUSS-INSPIRED FURNITURE COLLECTION
Truss, a 10-piece collection from Context Furniture that includes chairs, tables, benches, and casegoods, riffs on the basic architectural element of the truss. Made of Baltic birch plywood, the pieces could fit in anywhere from a residence to a library or school. Appropriate for such streamlined collection, the furniture comes in colors such as red, white, espresso, and moss gray with a choice of laminate or wood veneer. While the library desk and occasional table affect a retro look with their simple forms, the pieces are all CNC-milled and flat-packed, thus appearing contemporary, not nostalgic.

Miami Home & Decor, September 2006
International Contemporary Furniture Fair Review

Ready Made, Aug/Sept 2006

Review: Domestic Treasures

CHAIR AND CHAIR ALIKE
Expect a flood of grade-school memories when you sit in these reincarnated pieces from Context Furniture's Truss line.

Urban Legends: Detroit Michigan

FUNKIEST DESIGN SHOP
Context: Inspired by both modernism and the arts and crafts movement, husband-and-wife furniture makers Bryce and Kerry Moore cut chair and table parts from single sheets of birch plywood, creating pieces that bends simplicity and warmth.

Florida InsideOut, July/August 2006
15 of the best at ICFF

Detroit Free Press, July 17, 2006
SITTING PRETTY: Local furniture designers launch a new line to national buzz

BY JULIE HINDS
FREE PRESS STAFF WRITER
A recent Newsweek spread rounded up a dozen smart design ideas from across the globe.
Minneapolis made the cut for its daring architecture. So did the new, glass-cube Apple store on Manhattan's Fifth Avenue. Nestled among the big boys was a smaller venture, one with the crisp, clean look of a winner. The Truss Collection of furniture is "a match made in heaven, or at least in Michigan," Newsweek praised in late June.
The matchmaking happened right here in metro Detroit. The tables, chairs, desks and benches are a collaboration between a designer-in-residence at the Cranbrook Academy of Art, Scott Klinker, and a husband-and-wife design team, Bryce and Kerry Moore, who have a Royal Oak furniture company. Some say Michigan desperately needs cool cities. But the cool culture is already here, and the trio behind Truss demonstrates how local artists keep it alive by helping each other and working on buzzworthy projects.
The Moores initially met Klinker through an intern of theirs who was a student of his. "They immediately impressed me as people who were into design," says Klinker. About a year ago, the trio met up again at a party at a Ferndale lounge, the Bosco. Klinker mentioned a technical glitch he was having with a prototype for a table. The couple went to his studio and had a look. Right away, they knew how to fix it.
They spent the next several months developing the Truss Collection, with Klinker as the designer and Context Furniture, the company founded by the Moores, as the manufacturer. The line was launched in May at the International Contemporary Furniture Fair in New York City, where Newsweek staffers kept circling back to see the display, recalls Kerry Moore. "There were probably four of them and I probably handed out eight press kits to them," she says with a laugh. The collection is drawing the attention of hipsters who want the Ikea-style flair they craved right after college, but who are now established enough to buy something more unique and durable.
"My current customers are other people who are into design," says Kerry Moore. "Fashion designers, jewelry designers, people who work at advertising agencies. I have the young creative class as my primary retail clients."
The collection also has caught the attention of commercial clients like doctor's offices and libraries, according to Moore.
"People react to how crisp and clever it is," she says. "People get it. When they understand how it's made, they like it even more."
The retail prices range from $80 for a desk shelf to $189 for a studio chair to $650 for the library desk. The pieces are made from Baltic birch plywood with a choice of either laminate (in white, red, moss gray, espresso brown or custom colors) or wood veneer. The pieces have a truss element at the base and cutouts that lend an airy feeling. "It's whimsical, it's highly visual and it has a punchy graphic quality to it," says Klinker. The products are packaged and shipped out flat to buyers, who can assemble them with minimum fuss using a mallet and an Allen wrench.
The manufacturing is done locally with the help of a computer-controlled router that nests the various pieces together and cuts them out with minimal waste, sort of like a cookie maker would do with dough. The process allows the Moores to customize the pieces without inflating costs.
"Our real strong point that we go out and market is that we can adapt it for a particular need or use," says Bryce Moore.
These details are part of the big picture, but the Truss Collection is also the story of how Detroit's design traditions are being honored by a new generation. It's a nice reminder that not all the innovative young people in the region are looking to relocate.
"I wouldn't want to leave here now," says Kerry Moore. "The people you know, the community you meet."
Bryce Moore, 29, grew up in Birmingham and went to high school at Cranbrook. He met Kerry, who's 34 and from the Seattle region, when they were students at the University of Montana. After college, they moved back here. He studied at the College for Creative Studies in Detroit and focused on making custom furniture, while she freelanced as a graphic designer. They launched Context Furniture three years ago, working in a tiny space in Southfield. It was a far cry from their current roomy Royal Oak office digs. Their products are sold through the Web at contextfurniture.com and at showrooms outside the state.
Klinker, 40, a Philadelphia native, got his master of fine arts from Cranbrook in 1996 and now serves as head of the art academy's graduate 3-D design program. He has an impressive list of credentials that includes working for companies like Ericsson and IDEO and leading the product design program at a Japanese design institute.
Through his independent studio, Scott Klinker Product Design (www.scottklinker.com), he develops product ideas for various industries. Some of his proposed concepts for products include a sleek and fun WiFi office pod, which he genially calls "office on a stick," and an Icon vending machine that works like this: "You step into the vending machine, it scans you, and then it prints out a little model of yourself," he says.
Klinker approaches design with a keen, amused eye that takes the work seriously and himself less so. He jokes that his apartment has been described as "conspicuously austere," and that it's filled mostly with his prototypes, so he has to live with his mistakes. Using an expression he's heard and likes, he says your home essentially functions as "the museum of me." He's interested in making furniture, household goods and toys that take on big ideas, but in a very functional way.
"I'm less interested in a design that operates in a gallery," he explains. "I'm more interested in how those ideas spill out in the street and can affect people's everyday lives."
Kerry Moore says she believes the Truss Collection could attract the interest of a big retailer, somebody like a Crate & Barrel. Whatever happens, she feels as if the trio's work is being noticed. "Somebody's paying attention," she says, describing how it felt to be mentioned in Newsweek. And somebody is noticing that metro Detroit turns out a lot more than just cars, something residents have known all along.
"This area has a tradition of makers," says Kerry Moore. "A lot of people can sit around and think. But people here are making things."
Contact JULIE HINDS at 313-222-6427 or hinds@freepress.com.

Newsweek, June 26, 2006
Design Dozen 2006

TABLES TURN: MILAN/DETROIT
Terrific products bubble up from the inspired collaboration of designers and manufacturers—an everyday occurrence in Milan, less frequent in, say, Detroit. But today the provenance of a great idea can be anywhere.

SCOTT KLINKER: It was a match made in heaven, or at least in Michigan. Kerry and Bryce Moore, owners of Context, a small contemporary-furniture company in Royal Oak, met Scott Klinker—designer in residence and head of a graduate program at the renowned Cranbrook Academy of Art—at a local party. They quickly regrouped at Klinker's studio, where Scott showed them a prototype of the A-frame table (left) that had been giving him production problems. The Moores worked out the technical kinks just in time for Klinker's solo exhibition this year at Cranbrook, and the Truss Collection was born—10 pieces: tables, chairs, a desk. "Most important is that we share common values," says Klinker. "Context is design-driven; they want to lead the market, not follow it." Inspired by such elemental American icons as railroad bridges, Truss pieces have, their designer says, "an expression of unadorned structure that's almost simplistic, rustic." Context's digital manufacturing process turns out furniture made to be shipped flat, with minimal assembly. It's a process that minimizes cost as well. Says Klinker: "We're at an interesting intersection—affordable and contemporary—that's being underserved. Where do young people go after IKEA?"
—Dorothy Kalins

New York Times, May 18, 2006
Home and Garden News

CURRENTS: FURNITURE; A Showcase of New Design, American and Otherwise
By WILLIAM L. HAMILTON
On Saturday the International Contemporary Furniture Fair opens at the Jacob K. Javits Convention Center. A showcase of new design, the I.C.F.F. is New York's answer to the International Furniture Fair in Milan, and the city will be awash in design-related events for the weekend. The fair will be open to the public on Tuesday, closing day. Though international in scope, with nearly half of the 550 exhibitors from 31 other countries, the fair is still the broadest and best chance to get a look at American design, including the Truss cafe chair from Context Furniture, above, designed by Scott Klinker, $270 at contextfurniture.com.

Interior Design, Spring Market Tabloid 2006

SEATING: Page 33

The Truss line, with its cantilevered planes and geometric shapes, is the perfect upgrade from Ikea.
The chairs, tables and desks in the fun 10-piece collection –available in both child and adult sizes–is made from Baltic-birch plywood with a choice of laminate or wood veneer. Available in basic colors like red, moss grey, espresso, and white.

FURNITURE: Page 112

Scott Klinker's winsome A-Frame table and benches, with their graphic silhouettes and truss supports, are instantly recognizable. They are part of a line that includes desks, occasional tables and cafe and children's chairs; all pieces are constructed of Baltic-birch plywood and are available in red, white, espresso, and moss-grey laminates,or in maple and walnut wood veneers.

Metropolitan Home , June 2006
takenote:

GREAT SCOTT
The inviting cafe chair is just one piece from Scott Klinker's Truss Collection. Klinker, head of 3D design at Cranbrook Academy, created the line with the aid of a computer-controlled milling machine, using birch plywood and brightly colored laminates.

Interior Design, November 2005
Market Seating

Bryce and Kerry Moore fashion the William and Mary collection's Harbor Chair from utilitarian birch plywood that's cut, stacked, and then fused with glue. The contrasting leafing, which profited the stripe detail, comes in either dark maple or walnut veneer.

Architectural Record, August 2005
Product Briefs

Iconic design, with a twist

Bryce and Kerry Moore, the husband-and-wife design team behind Context Furniture Manufacturing, both parody and celebrate the iconic look of a chair from the 17th century with the William and Mary series of chairs and tables. to produce the series, silhouettes are cut out of wood sheet goods, then stacked and fused. Leafing in contrasting woods provides a striped effect when the layers are sliced. Some of the tables come with and aluminum base.

dwell, March 2004
In the Modern World

Rocker Stool

For those who have a penchant for tipping back their chairs, the piece will prevent unsightly spills onto the floor while ensuring flexibility in seating positions. An asymmetrical stripe of mahogany, walnut or maple intersects the surface of each stool, which consists of layers of Baltic birch plywood.

Studio Bullitts
January 2005

Context Furniture, a Michigan-based furniture design firm run by husband and wife design team Bryce and Kerry Moore, recently exhibited experimental designs and concept work at the SOFA Chicago 2004 show. The designers took their cues from historical graphics and the result is Clip Art: William and Mary.
By layering Baltic birch plywood with a signature hardwood accent, these pieces showcase the iconographic capabilities of the production process. The graphic presence is further emphasized by veneering the outside silhouettes with walnut.

New York Spaces, preview issue (November 2004)
new and noteworthy

Top Picks, eye-catching products chosen by our editors

The Narrative Collection armchair, $1,550, combines laminated Baltic birch plywood with a hardwood accent strip. From Context Furniture.

display & design ideas, October 2004
editor's choice

Context Furniture Manufacturing
Crafted of layered, laminated Baltic birch plywood, the pieces in the Narrative Collection feature hardwood details in standard selections of walnut, maple or mahogany, with additional species available upon request. The side table shown here is 24 in. wide and 18 in. high.

Furniture Style, May 2004

Letter from the Editor, by Julie M. Smith: When Context Furniture's press kit arrived in my inbox, I knew I had a winner. The Royal Oak, MI-based company, a first-time exhibitor at this month's International Contemporary Furniture Fair, shared ethereal-like images that set the tine for this issue's contemporary coverage ... More will follow, so check your inbox. You never know when you'll discover the next great product.

About the Cover: Contemporary furniture aficionados will have an opportunity to check out Context Furniture's stylish pieces May 15-18 at the International Contemporary Furniture Fair in New York. Designed by Bryce and Kerry Moore, the line is made of Baltic birch plywood with hardwood inserts. For a sneak preview, turn to Open & Shut on page 74.

Open & Shut: Two's company: Furniture makers Bryce and Kerry Moore are modern minimalists with a shared love Frank Lloyd Wright. See both designers at this year's edition of ICFF.