My friend Tim Collins of Skwehr Design wasn’t always my close friend. The design community is a small one here in Miami and when I came to this Island of South, beach that is, I was astounded by my inability to find the best of the best in the design world lined up front and center displaying their wares. Having lived and worked in both Chicago and New York and worked on several high style nightclub design projects I was surrounded by innovative, creative and qualified people on all of my projects.
When I was commissioned to design a custom Miami Modern home I was a little freaked out that I would not be able to execute some of the mid century interior details that are so key in a MiMo home. I ran through a series of finish carpenters and wanna-be custom millworkers before i started to alter the details to fit the level of craftsmen ship. At that time, we shared studio space with creative-wiz kid Sean Drake of one of Miami’s hottest creative design studios; Creative Mafia. (more about Sean later! Too many things for too few words!) He would always pop upstairs to our studio to see what we had cooking. When he saw the renderings for the house he flipped. I shared with him my frustration in finding like minded craftsmen with design skills and backgrounds to help us execute our details.
Enter, Tim Collins. In walks a tall man, trucker hat and a wolf like dog with hands the size of catchers mitts. Sean basically says, “this is your guy.” As it turned out, Tim did become our guy and with a background in architecture from Boston Architectural College and hands befitting a surgeon sculpting with wood. I couldn’t have asked for a better fit.
Together we created a modern masterpiece. Finely tuned and finely crafted.
Collaboration: Collins and Fortis
What began in the kitchen, quickly moved up to the stairs and around the balcony into the bathrooms. I am very proud of my work with Tim and through the experience didn’t just gain a first class designer/fabricator but a good friend.
My next step is to work him into some of our nightclub design projects coming soon!