07.04.25
Studio Visit
This Red Hook Studio and Woodshop is Redefining What a Design Community Can Look Like
When I first got wind of Piscina, the shared workshop and showroom run by designer Natalie Shook out of a 20,000-square-foot space in Red Hook, Brooklyn, my first thought was of other similar, collective design spaces we've known and loved over the years: Okay Studio in London, the late-aughts group of RCA grads (think Peter Marigold, Tomas Alonso, and Raw-Edges), who designed and often exhibited together under the same roof; Atelierdorp, the Eindhoven-based collective featuring designers like Nacho Carbonell and Julien Carretero, who worked out of a Catholic church and were the subject of one of Sight Unseen's very first articles; and the Steve's Key Lime Pie building that inspired our original Red Hook studio tour, once home to the likes of Fort Standard, Pat Kim, Brian Persico, and a host of other woodworkers. But after spending the better part of a day at the Piscina space this fall and chatting with both Shook and the other designers who work there — including Luke Malaney, Jenna Graziano, Charles Grantham, Ford Bostwick, Chuck VanDyck, and Giovanni Valdeavellano of Studio POA, who has since moved his studio upstate — a clearer picture emerged of how different Piscina is from its predecessors.
