They were going to open a bike shop on Main Street in Over-the-Rhine, but when the realities of bookkeeping, tune-ups, order forms and merchandise sunk in, they opened
Losantiville Kunstwerkhaus instead.
The business is a collective studio where five industrial designers and two interns design, fabricate and sell a variety of products. A gallery in the front of the space holds chairs cut from reclaimed cardboard and a semi-enclosed recumbent trike. Vintage furniture and bicycles, an antique engine lathe and other tools pepper the production space in back where the walls are covered with drawings of potential new products.
The shop loosely mimics those found in Over-the-Rhine in the 19th century, when craftsmen produced and sold products out of buildings called Kunstwerkhauses. Today, old ways of producing locally continue to catch on around the country, and the do-it-yourself concept is back en vogue.
One of the business' founders, John Burnham Dixon, brought the idea back from New York where he saw independent designers banding together to split high rents. In other cities with top industrial design programs, he said, it's common for designers to support themselves with jobs in unrelated fields after graduation so they can pursue their goals of designing and/or producing their own products. In Cincinnati, he said, it seems most of his fellow University of Cincinnati Design Art Architecture and Planning (DAAP) industrial design graduates either go straight into jobs with a few major corporations here, or move away to find work.
Dixon works in a machine shop during the day and designs furniture in the evenings. He also makes and sells wooden bike handlebars and leather coffee cup holders. He and business partners David Parrot, Noel Gauthier, Matt Anthony and Chris Heckman all hold or are pursuing industrial design degrees - all but one from DAAP.
Losantiville does not provide a primary source of income for him or the others, but it allows them to pursue their interests, goals and dreams without breaking their banks. It also allows them to cross-promote one-another. A sixth member is joining them next month, and there is room for others.
Some proponents of development on Main Street might consider Losantiville to be in a "hobby business" stage, since it doesn't have regular storefront hours or, as of yet, produce enough salable products to support those hours. But Losantiville presents a model that could catch on in Over-the-Rhine, where inexpensive rents can land a collective of creatives a commercial storefront at an affordable price.
The collective is currently looking for larger spaces in Over-the-Rhine where one-ton presses, lathes or mills could help bring their fabrication to the next level - and maybe let at least one of them quit their day jobs.
Writer: Henry Sweets
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