Kit and Ace, Calgary — Six Week Deadline for a Dining Suite

Connection: Retail Partnership

Location: Kit and Ace, Calgary, AB

Date: November, 2014

Material: White Ash and Copper

"A full dining suite — two tables, six chairs, and two benches — designed, built, and delivered in six weeks."

Kit and Ace built each of their stores as a hyper-local expression — commissioning lighting designers, artists, and furniture makers directly from each city. A central feature of every location was a monthly supper club: artists, entrepreneurs, and community leaders invited to dine together inside the space.

The Calgary commission came through Dade Loft, a design studio and art gallery based in the city. A previous builder had fallen through. The store was opening in six weeks.

The brief was the full dining suite — a central table, six chairs, and two benches — in white ash and copper, with complete creative freedom on the design. The starting point was the name itself. Kit and Ace — the duality in it, the feminine and the masculine held together. That tension became the design direction.

My father, a skilled craftsman, came in to help meet the timeline. We packed everything up and drove it out for installation before the soft launch.

The project worked because Dade Loft gave it room to. Trust and clear communication from the start meant the work could move from concept to delivery without friction — which, given six weeks, was the only way it was going to happen.