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Office Hours: PlayLab, Designers (Audio)

Oct 30, 2018
Produced by Food New York.

PLAYLAB makes work that makes you believe in shit all over again.

Archie and Jeff's interview originally aired on October 30, 2018.

Archie Lee Coates IV and Jeff Franklin are co-founders and partners at PLAYLAB, INC., a New York based creative studio. With no particular focus, PLAYLAB, INC. explores themes that interest them, using art, architecture and graphic design to initiate ideas. Past projects have included: 30' inflatable flowers for Midtown Manhattan and Shanghai, China, giant worm tents for the New Museum of Contemporary Art and Storefront For Art & Architecture with Family New York, a re-brand of America for SFMOMA, a book with Virgil Abloh, a house in the woods in upstate New York, a compilation of all the times Joaquin Phoenix has walked in his films, titled Walking Phoenix, and over 240 other projects. In 2011, Archie and Jeff co-founded the quarterly architecture publication called CLOG, and in 2010 they co-founded + POOL, an initiative to build the world's first water-filtering floating pool in New York with Dong-Ping Wong and Oana Stănescu. They are thesis faculty at School of Visual Arts' Design for Social Innovation program since 2013, where they teach how to bring ideas to life.

Archie also makes paintings under the name Otto Milo and music under the name Tropical-L. Archie graduated from Virginia Tech with a BFA in Graphic Design.

Jeff also makes art under the name Race Car. Jeff graduated from Virginia Tech with a BA in architecture and a minor in Industrial Design.

Both Archie and Jeff are now on the board of Virginia Tech.

Food Radio is a radio station started by Food New York. For season one, Office Hours, we took over a storefront in Chinatown and interviewed over 50 artists, designers, chefs, architects, entrepreneurs, and one politician, all to find out how they managed to make money doing what they love. The space was open for anyone to visit, hang out, attend workshops and ask questions. All of the interviews were recorded live. A special thanks goes out to Jelisa Blumberg, Wave Farm, Montez Press Radio and Patrick Nininger.