Holy fabrication work!

Figure 1
A baldachin is a ceremonial canopy found in a church. Design Fugitives, Milwaukee, fabricated this particular baldachin with a CNC plasma table with a Hypertherm Powermax85 to cut the sections out; a manual roller to form the cylindrical shapes; and a gas metal arc welding power source to join the parts together. It was later sandblasted and painted to get the final bronze appearance.

A company that goes by the name Design Fugitives probably isn’t a metal fabricator in the sense that it can deliver 5,000 metal widgets by the start of business the next day.

In reality, the Milwaukee company is a design firm that can both envision and make the vision a reality. It started in 2009 as a collection of three individuals with backgrounds in architecture who wanted to do more than just sit in front of their computers all day. They wanted to be involved in the actual creations of the designs, which today include furniture, lighting fixtures, and even pavilions.

The company also has the latest tools to showcase the principals’ craftsmanship. It uses the latest CNC plasma and routing technology, for example, to create these special fabrications.

“The way we talk about ourselves is we are ‘figure-outers,’” said Paul Mattek, one of the founding partners.

With the design talent and the fabricating muscle to tackle their own work, Design Fugitives inevitably finds itself taking on challenging work—something almost any metal fabricator can identify with. In one of its more interesting undertakings recently, the company designed and fabricated ecclesiastical elements for St. Mary Magdalen Parish in Grand Rapids, Mich. (see Figure 1).

Design Fugitives was approached after having worked with a Jesuit priest working at the University of Detroit Mercy (UDM), who later recommended the firm to the parishioners of St. Mary Magdalen. They wanted to somehow find a way to demonstrate the “shield of the spirit,” as Mattek described it, around the Eucharistic celebration.

Like most any successful design project, the winning idea began with a simple sketch. Instead of off-the-shelf wire mesh architectural elements that were originally in the worship space, Design Fugitives came up with the idea to create a sense of movement on the church walls, like wheat being blown by the wind.

“It was something immaterial registering itself on something material and then creating a new composition—a new life to it,” Mattek said. “The visible and the invisible merged.”

Mattek and his partners met with the UDM liturgical design consultant and even chatted briefly with a Vatican astronomer. That input helped them deliver a rendering of a lighted baldachin (from the Italian word baldacchino) to share with parishioners. That rendering revealed not only an obvious pattern in the metal, but also another one evident on the nearby wall (see Figure 2). The light was cast around the worship space.

After the design firm received buy-in from the church, it had to fabricate the pieces. It used Rhinoceros 3-D design software to re-create the renderings in a digital format and a software plug-in to write a script that allowed for manipulation of the design, such as adjusting the density of the pattern in areas or deciding just how much rotation to introduce as the design was wrapped around a cylinder. When the final tweaks were done, the software flattened out the design, and the CNC instructions were created for the plasma cutting table. The smaller parts were later welded together, and final finishing steps led to the creation of the new ecclesiastical elements.

Figure 2
The light emanating from the metal fabrications is meant to evoke the presence of the Holy Spirit watching over Mass. Some parishioners also see shapes that remind them of the crown of thorns that adorned Jesus’ head when he died on the cross.

Design Fugitives designed and fabricated the baldachin, a sanctuary lamp (see Figure 3), an ambry for holding oils, Stations of the Cross panels, water font holders, a decorative wall pattern, and four intricate door carvings. Only the latter was made of wood.

Looking back at this project, Mattek said he believes that his company accomplished the main goal of delivering what the customer had in mind, but had no idea of how to create. This project, however, also met personal expectations as well.

“Our primary desire is to design and make cool stuff,” he said.

Amen.

Figure 3
The up-close view of the sanctuary lamp provides a detailed look at the plasma-cut pattern that throws a lighted pattern on the wall.