Design Profile: Ric Allison and The Poetic Moment

When I first met Ric Allison, he was quietly working in the metal shop (as quietly as one can work in a metal shop). I introduced myself, he briefly glanced up, politely said hello and got back to work. Nose to the grindstone. Watching Ric’s work develop I realized why he was so diligent, or rather what that diligence was able to manifest. The beauty of both the design and craft of his work can be startling. There is a bold, almost futuristic, biodynamic aspect in his pieces, but it also echos a past that revered craftsmanship and detail. His hand is always evident in his work, even if it is subtly betrayed by precision.

I sat down with Ric to discuss his process of designing furniture for a client.

“I spend a lot of time reading people, understanding what they like, interviewing them, walking through their homes,“ Allison explains,”hearing what they respond to– how they talk about their children, their family, their past… How they spend their moments.” Allison photographs the spaces his clients live in, studies the context of the space and applies his abstract impressions of the clients to the concrete parameters of the space.

“If [designing] a dining room set or a credenza or a chandelier- how does it fit within the room and how does it speak to the other pieces in the room?” Allison continues, noting that a piece can be additive or subtractive relative to its environment and the other objects within that environment– nudging the essence of the space in one direction or another. ”There’s a conversation between this painting and this piece of furniture, what are they talking about?” The ultimate purpose of this process is to find what Alison calls the “Poetic Moment”, a feeling that transcends the objects at the apex of that “conversation”.

“In working with clients in the design field of furniture and architecture, I’m really trying to find out what their relationships are about… what’s there, but mostly what’s missing. And what’s missing is the thing that they want most, which is bringing them a sense of well being, of peace,” says Allison, “more than anything, what people want everyday, they want their life to be, not just exciting, but to have a sense of grace, a sense of bliss.

Give them what they want, not exactly what they are asking for. What they ask for is based on what they have seen, what they already know. What they want is tethered in the question of what might be, not what ‘is’.  Designing in the potential is the gift of offering a state of grace. The potential is the bliss, the poetic moment.”

To illustrate the practical function of this process, Allison outlines a project, a dining table and chairs built for a couple living in the Rittenhouse Square area of Philadelphia.

“His family business is a glass company, so one big part of the project had to be glass… the space that it would be in had leaded glass windows, the room was rather dark, but it had a courtyard outside of it, with a garden pond,” relates Allison, “the second thing was that he was a little bit Art Deco and she was a little bit ‘cowboy’ in her styling – haircut short, looked like she was from Texas. OK, little Art Nouveau, Art Deco, a little bit ‘cowboy’.” Understanding that Western saddles, designs and tooling all come from Art Nouveau, Allison found a cohesive element with which to work in the context of Art Nouveau. Allison continues, “I’ve got this outside space, so a little bit ‘garden’, and then, the glass… so I start looking at the process, ‘what is glass?’, glass is reflective, ok, well underneath that reflection you can bounce it, and mirror it.”

One of the project’s requirements was that it include seating for a dozen people. The glass top meant that those 24 legs would be visible which is not necessarily desirable, so Allison sought a means of obscuring the space beneath the glass top. This opening up of the tabletop through transparency, coupled with the contrasting desire to obscure it, led to rich design opportunities. Treating the glass as an aquatic https://finasteridehair.com metaphor, Allison created a three dimensional expression beneath the surface. Allowing the influence of aquatic forms, plecostomus “sucker” fish, floating flowers and a rowing scull – an echo from the nearby Schuylkill River (the piece is titled “Sculling Table”). The integration of the scull is elegantly conceived as a long channel running the length of the table.

In his Western aesthetic explorations, Allison discovered another beautiful concurrence in the sweeping, wave-like curves of a Longhorn Steer. The “horns” influenced the broad, flowing supports that cross above the central structure. These supports float like graceful ribs above the central axis of the table with the scull form as a spine floating below.

“In designing the chairs, I first find the language: How does [a chair] fit within the set? How do they fit together? How do they look? Are they comfortable?,” says Allison. Referencing years spent in the restaurant business. He continues, “The chairs are always in the way, people can’t get in and out of them, they’re not comfortable and the waiter can’t get in to give them what they need. If you createa chair that is more of a trapezoidal or triangular shape, you get more access right? And easier access in and out.

The brief on the chairs from [the clients] was: ‘We have a very tall family, we are big, we don’t get up from the table, we have cocktails there, we have dinner there, we have desert and we’ll hang out.’” This dictated that Allison address three different sitting positions, formal (sitting straight up), casual (leaning back) and an in-between position. “So I put arms on them, you can slouch in them, you can sit straight up and every position is comfortable, so that’s the 95 percentile chair that you want to get to, for every size and type of person.”

That sounds great, but we all know how infrequently that criteria is met. Most chairs are uncomfortable in any position, and not the contrary. This is where the fluidity of Allison’s design meets the practicality of physical science.

“No chair that I ever sat in was comfortable,” Allison expresses,”Charles and Ray Eames had it with the plywood chip chair with the metal legs. They actually got that, partly because of the bent curved plywood and also because what it did was pick up the front of the thigh, drop all of the weight off of your seat bone, pick you up off the ground just slightly so your feet are almost elevated and pick up your lower back support three to four inches.

The rest of the chair doesn’t matter, if you get those three spots you’re golden. So in designing every single chair that I do, I try to pick up those same spots. If you sit in a chair, for one; it should make you look good, two; it should look good on its own and fit within the context of the space and also offer different ways of sitting that are comfortable, not everybody sits the same way. It should also bring you to a place of being in the zone, ‘oh my god, this is what it’s like to sit in a chair!’ It doesn’t have to be hard– I’ve got to keep scooting and moving and changing and every time I’m leaning from one hip to the other where I’m in @#$%& pain by the time I get up. You should be in a moment where you are like, ‘oh my god this is awesome, everyplace I sit, I feel good.’”

Ric applies similar methodology in all of his work. Be it environmental design, his innovative surf and skateboard designs, architecture or education, Allison’s deeply engaged process is uniquely inspiring.

I’ll be sitting down with Ric again to discuss his work and transformative design pedagogy on November 18th. This will be part of NextFab’s “Maker Happy Hour” monthly series at 2025 Washington Avenue. The event is free and open to the public from 6:00pm-8:00pm.

See more of Ric’s work at MakerUSA.

Join us for a design discussions.