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Gritty elegance sets designer apart

Natural materials, industrial details unit for unique feel

The Columbian
Published: July 16, 2015, 12:00am
5 Photos
Rubber City Fab owner Dominic Falcione shows off some of his work in use at The Bit Factory on June 2, 2015, in Akron, Ohio.
Rubber City Fab owner Dominic Falcione shows off some of his work in use at The Bit Factory on June 2, 2015, in Akron, Ohio. (Phil Masturzo/Akron Beacon Journal/TNS) Photo Gallery

AKRON, Ohio — Dominic Falcione’s gritty studio on downtown Akron’s western fringe once warehoused industrial parts. His materials include metals and rough wood. His inspiration sometimes comes from the urban infrastructure.

Yet from those come objects of function and beauty.

Falcione is a sculptor and fabricator whose business, Rubber City Fab, creates furniture, lighting and other items for homes and commercial spaces. Most are commissioned pieces, but Falcione is not just a craftsman carrying out others’ instructions. He’s known for bringing an artistic vision and a keen attention to detail to his work.

“It always ends up being a mix between designer and fabricator,” said Karen Starr, an Akron interior designer who often contracts with Falcione to build furniture for clients of her Hazel Tree Interiors. Typically she’ll tell him the function of the piece, the scale she needs and her aesthetic parameters, “but it’s his design from there,” she said.

Falcione’s explanation is more self-effacing. “Things come up,” he said, “and I can figure out how to make them.”

That’s what happened when he won the contract to furnish the Bit Factory, an arm of the Akron Global Business Accelerator that supports new technology companies. Falcione had the opportunity to both design the layout and create the furnishings, a rare combination of skills he relished.

The collaborative work space is in downtown’s Canal Place, the old B.F. Goodrich factory complex. Falcione honored its industrial pedigree by leaving ceiling pipes exposed and covering the cracked concrete floors with only a clear finish, but he used movable partitions to define rooms within the open area and imbued the space with a modern feel and an energizing glow of light.

Large tables called work stations are each topped by a slab of walnut with its natural edges left intact, which hides electrical outlets and provides a place to mount arms for computer monitors. Sheer panels framed by raw wood diffuse the light from overhead fixtures and are interspersed with metal panels bent into angular shapes. Glass-topped occasional tables in a casual seating area have clever metal bases that can be turned on their sides to change tables’ height.

Light glows from within angular partitions and tall wood lighting fixtures called fire lamps. The partitions have a crisscross design inspired by bridge trusses, a design Falcione also used for the metal bases of the work stations.

The light is a decorative element in itself. “When you introduce light, light is kind of like a living thing,” Falcione explained. “The light kind of gives the object life.”

The space showcases the modern industrial look he gravitates toward, a sort of refined roughness. But he can create items in a range of styles, depending on the customers’ wishes. His versatility, he believes, is his strength.

Falcione typically designs his pieces on a computer using the design software Solidworks but uses the traditional tools of metalworking and woodworking to carry out his vision — grinders and wire welders, table saws and drills.

What sets him apart is his craftsmanship and attention to detail, she said. When he designed a bookshelf with a Frank Lloyd Wright feel, he spent so much time on the computer rendering to show to her clients that the finished piece turned out exactly as they envisioned it.

“He is definitely an artist,” Starr said.

And his work captures the strength and soul of the city that shaped him.

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