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Case Study – Dogfish Head Brewpub | Paul Downs

Paul Downs Custom Furniture Case Study: Dogfish Head Brewpub

DogFish Head Brewery Rendering

Starting point: a cool, fresh idea. Finish line: happy users. What every architect, contractor, and fabricator wants, right? But in between, there are a million ways to go astray. We recently completed a project for the new Dogfish Head Brewpub in Rehoboth, DE that shows how an unusual design concept made it to successful completion

DESIGN

Anyone who has tried to design a chair or sofa knows that finding a design that both looks and feels good is tricky. This is why most seating is a derivative of existing forms. Things that look like what we expect them to inspire a base level of comfort with users, and that’s important. So what should a designer do when introducing a strong visual theme derived from forms unrelated to seating? DIGSAU, a local architecture firm, took on that challenge in an interesting way. Their client was a brewery. Their inspiration, clearly, a barrel. 

Barrel-shaped booths line the far wall. Very cool, especially since the far end, instead of being a dark plane, is a window looking onto the main street of the town. The client loved the idea. So DIGSAU refined the concept.

DIGSAU architects 2nd render

The next step in this process is what separates successful seating design from failure: they tried it out on real people. A prototype booth was constructed at Dogfish Head’s original location, and the public was invited to try it and comment.

DogFish Head Brewery Concept Booth - Case Study

Just looking at the photo, what would you predict would be the most common feedback? On the whole, people liked the design but consistently asked for two improvements.

First, they wanted some upholstery for better back support. Adding this had the secondary benefit of pushing them a couple of inches forward in the seat, keeping their heads from hitting the booth as it curves inward.  

And they wanted the floor to be flat. Curved floors actually feel very strange, and are quite difficult to navigate in high heels (or after a few beers.)

CONSTRUCTION

The design was modified as requested, and the project was released to the GC. That’s where we got involved. We had worked with Lighthouse Construction on a previous project. They loved our work on that job, and, after constructing the mockup booth, realized that our level of craftsmanship was required.  

There are some tricky things about this design. The solid planks need to be cut precisely to length and width, and they need a durable finish. That kind of work can’t be done on site. But the booths are also very large, and so they needed to be fabricated in pieces that could be easily moved and assembled on site. Building large, delicate objects and shipping them all over the place is what we do (although most of the time, we’re making custom boardroom tables).

Construction Outline Begins - Case Study: DogFish Head Brewery

So we’ve developed ways to make even the biggest, most unwieldy object into something more like IKEA furniture: shippable, and easy to assemble. We decided to make each booth as a separate construction, consisting of four pieces: left side, right side, top, and floor.  Here’s the frame of one of the booths on our shop floor:

It’s hard to see where the pieces meet because they fit together so precisely. They are held together with threaded hand knobs. The booth can be joined and disassembled in minutes.

Construction Continues - Case Study: DogFish Head Brewery

Adding the planks required careful craftsmanship. We had the wood milled and finished by TILO Industries. Then we started gluing and nailing each board onto the frame, adding 1/16” spacers between everyone so that each plank can expand and contract without disturbing its neighbor.

The planks are flush at the one end of the booth and stick out 8” on the other side so that they can be mounted flush to the curved window frames.

After all of the planks were mounted, the booths were disassembled and trucked to the site, and then secured in place. The carpenters then faced the wall of booths with reclaimed pine and mounted the upholstery.

COMPLETION

What’s missing?  Happy beer lovers!  Fortunately, all you have to do is open the doors and they show up! Congratulations to DIGSAU, Lighthouse Construction, and especially Dogfish Head Brewing on a fabulous project.

Are you working on something that requires superior craftsmanship and engineering?  Are you wondering how to build your great idea? Give us a call!


If you haven’t already, please look through our gallery of custom conference tables. You can choose any of these designs as a starting point for your project, or you can submit your own designs. For help designing your custom conference project, contact us today at 610-239-0142 or info@pauldowns.com.