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The Sullivan House Bakery
October 1st, 2022
After more than 30 years in the insurance industry, a few years baking in a small Vermont bakery on the side, and a two-year stint as a Vermont inn owner, Nancy Ames was ready for her next adventure—opening a bakery. Ames always knew that something food/baking-related was her passion, but it wasn’t until she lost […]
Pandemic demand drives shade market
February 1st, 2021
While 2020 started as a disaster, pandemic-related business picked up substantially as the year went on. Fabric manufacturers such as Glen Raven Custom Fabrics LLC were among companies providing shade products, like the Sunbrella® fabric for these shade structures in Miami, Fla., as restaurants moved to outdoor dining. Photo: Glen Raven Custom Fabrics LLC. For […]
Quiet Critters
October 10th, 2019
2019 IAA Award of Excellence The eight 5-foot by 8-foot sound-absorbing “Acoustical FireFlys” that float above the Patten Free Library teen area allow a lively range of programming to take place, including films and maker workshops, without disturbing other library patrons. The new teen area has a distinctive high ceiling and a curved outer wall […]
Apartment honors history with fabric images
February 1st, 2019
Designer Cory Gans of Boston’s Planeta Design Group had a unique idea to honor the history of the site where the new Montaje Apartments in Sommerville, Mass., now stand. Gans wanted to incorporate photographs from the old Ford Motor Company assembly plant that once inhabited what is now Assembly Row, a residential and commercial redevelopment […]
Transformit wins merit award
November 8th, 2018
Montaje Apartments Luminaire, a collaboration of the tension-fabric design studio, Transformit, and the multidisciplinary design firm, Planeta Design Group, received a CODAawards Merit Award in the competition’s residential category. Installed in the lobby of the newly opened Montaje apartments at Assembly Row, Somerville, Mass., the sculptural luminaire uses semi-opaque and mesh tension fabrics to create […]
Fabrics bring museum exhibits to life
August 1st, 2018
Visitors to the new Mississippi Civil Rights Museum in Jackson, Miss., are bound to be moved by the multiplicity of impressions, sounds, lights and graphic images that could only be presented with the aid of fabric. “This Little Light of Mine,” the name of the main exhibition at the Jackson museum, aims to immerse visitors […]
IFAI Expo 2016: specialty fabrics programming
December 1st, 2016
A variety of educational choices drove the Specialty Fabrics Program schedule Oct. 18-21 at the IFAI 2016 Expo. Attendees enjoyed dozens of presentations and “campfire” sessions featuring experts on topics as diverse as training the next generation of skilled workers, understanding functional fabric design and beating offshore manufacturers. The exhibit hall showcased the latest in fabrics, […]
The Future of Interior Textile Architecture: Optimistic Sustainability
October 21st, 2016
At a Campfire Session on Thursday, Oct. 20, on the show floor at IFAI Expo 2016, Cynthia Thompson, MFA, shared her thoughts on where the “built environment” is headed. Thompson is the founder of Transformit, a company based in Gorham, Maine, that designs and creates artistic and functional tensioned fabric structures and components. “In the […]
Red overhead
September 1st, 2015
The Guildford Town Center in Surrey, British Columbia, Canada, wanted to spice up the looks of its newly renovated mall with long fabric ribbons above two of the mall’s second-level walkways. The designer envisaged a continuous ribbon of constant width, and Transformit Inc., Gorham, Maine, accepted the challenge. To comply with fire code, the ribbons […]
Thompson uses creativity to drive business
August 1st, 2008
Cynthia Thompson leverages her creative instincts to build a flourishing tension fabric structures business. “Business owners need to be inventive and fast moving and I think we’ve gotten sluggish,” says Cynthia Thompson, founder and owner of Transformit in Gorham, Maine. “I think we’re looking to creative people to put the juice back into our world.” […]