| Biography |
play.room was founded in 2021 by Robby Simon, a self-taught African American furniture designer in Atlanta, Georgia. Simon works exclusively with 100% forest-free lumber harvested locally, creating heirloom-quality pieces from hardwood trees that would otherwise be bound for landfills.
It’s no surprise that he would see potential in places others might overlook; raised by a single mother, the 33 year old has experienced poverty, homelessness, and addiction. His recovery greatly informs his work as well as his community-minded approach to sourcing, crafting, and sharing it.
Simon's design career began at his day job in facilities maintenance for a tech company, where he quickly went from barely reading a tape measure to buying and maintaining high-end furniture. He found himself drawn to quality craftsmanship and modern design on a deeper level; during the pandemic, he used his company’s learning and development incentives to take an apprenticeship position with Robell Awake, a renowned chairmaker and teacher whose work centers Black aesthetic traditions and histories.
Working out of MASS Collective, a local makerspace, Awake mentored Simon in the intricacies of furniture making. Simon taught himself 3D modeling, too. Suddenly, he could turn what he saw in his imagination into tangible, artful pieces. His first collection sold out, and since then, his work continues to embody Play.Room’s tagline: “Seriously Fun!”
Inspired by Simon's love of skateboarding, youth culture, and fantasy, play.room furniture is an attempt to “totemize” the world around Robby and create a new range of language in furniture design.
|
