Awesome show alert.

Steven Urbatsch and Matthew Josephs run Material Process Systems. Their extensive shop focuses on architectural and furniture fabrication. During a slow period in the shop due to the recession, they dreamed up the idea for RE/BUILD. Fast forward a few months and the show is just about ready to open, May 15th at Gallery 1889 in Greenpoint.

Construction of Daniel Harper’s piece for RE/BUILD

How did you come up with the idea for RE/BUILD?

Matt: The first quarter of 2009 was slow for us. And that’s when we hatched this plan. Things were starting to compress and condense in the market. But we still have this beautiful shop, we still have the guys that work in it, we have a lot of material left over from previous jobs, and we have relationships with a lot of really great designers.

Steve: We invited some designers and architects that we knew to come in and design pieces using the extra material we have sitting around. As designers and architects, they like to have parameters, and so we gave them certain constraints, but they could kind of make whatever they wanted.

Matt: We figured, hell, let’s have a party. Let’s do something fun with the resources we have. But not just fun – also experimental and interesting. Let’s play with ideas that we’ve been kicking around. Let’s realize some of these crazy notions and put them to the test.

Where are you holding the show?

Matt: Gallery 1889 is 1066 Manhattan Avenue. It’s the corner piece in a group of property that’s been in my family for about 100 years. My great-grandfather settled in Greenpoint back around the turn of the century. The last century. My father is the third-generation proprietor over there. As times have changed, the business has gotten smaller and smaller and smaller. So he still has this property, and he still runs a store, but 1066 has been vacant for about a year and change now.

Steve: We’ve had our eye on this particular space for quite a while. And then one morning we were just sitting in here brainstorming, and it seemed like the moment to take advantage of it.

Construction of John Seward’s piece for RE/BUILD

Let’s talk a little about your company, Material Process Systems. How did MPS start?

Steve: We’re both sculptors, that’s our background.

Matt: Recovering sculptors.

Steve: Matt had a wood shop and some space over here, and I had a metal shop down the street. We knew each other, and we were working on some projects together, and it came to a point where it made sense for us to merge. We teamed up on the office and the support staff. We do mostly commercial and residential projects.

Matt: Much of what we work with here is sheet material, in the metals and the woods. It creates an interesting set of parameters within which we can work.

When you decided to put together a show, who are the designers you brought in?

Steve: We wanted the designers who came in to have a feel for what we do. Except for a couple people, we’ve worked with everybody before. They’ve got an aesthetic that is suitable for what we make.

Matt: Let’s go down the list. Simon Eisinger, he’s a partner at Lynch / Eisinger / Design. He’s someone we’ve known for many years and we’ve done quite a bit of work with. Including some really remarkable stuff for Nike – 2 stores for them.

Nike’s Geneology of Speed exhibition, fabricated by MPS

Steve: There’s Matter Practice, which is Alfred Zollinger and Sandra Wheeler. They’re another Brooklyn architecture and design company who we’ve known for many years. I think I met them 10 or 12 years ago. Periodically we’ve done projects with them.

Matt: And Dave Scott – who’s more than just a participant, he’s a very close friend and ally. His office is in this building, and he works out of this shop. He makes much of his own goods and produces his projects here. Together we have a strategic alliance, I guess you could call it. We produce the Plateau line with the very same material that the black bench is made out of. So Dave Scott’s a very close friend and a dynamite designer.

Steve: And then, John Seward is a Pratt student. We thought it would be great to get a little bit of a different perspective.

Matt: Working with students, and there are two, John and Elizabeth, is central to the idea of RE/BUILD. Because the students represent something fresh and new and different and untested.

Construction of Elizabeth Cordes’ piece for RE/BUILD

Matt: And Dan Harper was brought to us by the co-producer of this event, Susie Watkins. Honestly, we don’t know him that well, but he’s blowing our minds.

Steve: He came in kind of late, so we’re actually just working his piece out right now. Hopefully we’ll be able to pull this thing off. It’s this crazy contraption – he’s more of an artists than a product designer, so it’s actually not going to be a furniture piece. It’s going to be this thing that moves and cycles.

Construction of Daniel Harper’s piece for RE/BUILD

We’ve had several people come to us and tell us about offsite shows they’re putting together. We started to feel like this year is really going to be about the offsite shows. Nobody’s got the money to take the standard route, so everyone’s doing really creative stuff.

Steve: In a way, not having any money kind of liberates you. Nobody expects a fancy gala. You can just make cool stuff and forget the pretenses.