FERNANDO MASTRANGELO STUDIO

Fernando is an artist who makes sculptural furniture from cement, sand, and other cast media.

I was initially hired as the studio’s Woodworker, constructing any necessary formwork, but that role was gradually expanded until I was promoted to Studio Manager, where my primary responsibility was taking Fernando’s ideas and sketches and turning them into detailed plans and directions for our team, as well as stepping in to personally fabricate critical elements.

Escape series

One of my first projects working for Fernando, I constructed all the wooden molds and steel skeletons to precisely specified tolerances for this collection made of resin-bonded sand and crushed glass.

Image courtesy of Fernando Mastrangelo and Cary Whitier

Ridge mirror

The first FM/S project I was specifically placed in charge of managing (unfortunately this was after it had already started), the Ridge Mirror is a mosaic of over 1,400 individually water-jet cut mirror tiles bonded to a floating aluminum frame. Problems I got to solve included “huh, a bunch of these pieces don’t fit” and “how are we going to move this thing once it’s done?”

Ghost Console

When a client requested a 7 foot wide version of Fernando’s cement Ghost Console (usually 40”), I found we could dramatically cut the cost of the project by constructing the full-scale styrofoam prototype as a hand-cut stacked fin model, rather than paying to have it machined in 3D. This construction method also allowed us to embed structural steel elements within the core to help combat any sagging or cracking.

the dream

This fully-immersive booth produced for the annual Collective Design Fair was the largest-scale project I ever managed for Fernando.

The Dream was a wall-to-wall room vision, which featured massive curved cast-sand wall tiles and custom carpeted steps surrounding a sand-and cashmere sofa on top of an interlocking cement tile platform …plus a chandelier that looks like the moon. All of which needed to pack into a truck for a two-day installation window.

I handled all dimensional and structural considerations of the design, oversaw production of the many different components to ensure everything would fit together, and sequenced/directed the on-site installation.