Brendan Ravenhill’s Dustbin in the KCRW Store

This week’s DnA pick for the KCRW Store is The Dustbin. It’s a lovechild of sorts between a trash can and a dust pan designed by Brendan Ravenhill. As a…

This week’s DnA pick for the KCRW Store is The Dustbin. It’s a lovechild of sorts between a trash can and a dust pan designed by Brendan Ravenhill.

As a child, Brendan Ravenhill spent his summers building boats in Maine and the Ivory Coast, which taught him traditional woodworking skills and the importance of quality materials. After earning degrees in sculpture and industrial design, he began making his own furniture and accessories, bursting onto the design scene with an exquisitely simple, yet elegantly crafted bottle opener: a bent nail on a walnut handle, with a magnet on the back to catch the cap.

This quest for handsome, utility-driven design is evident in all his work, from chairs, to lighting, to the Dustbin, which may be the world’s best-designed trash can.The ingenious Dustbin incorporates a dustpan as the trash can’s counter-balanced swinging lid. Working with Gordon Brush, a local company that also makes brushes for NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Ravenhill designed a brush with inset magnets that affix it to the Dustbin, keeping all the tools for clean-up at the ready. It’s a clever, high-quality trash can that could last you the rest of your refuse-collecting life. And it’s completely made in Los Angeles, manufactured out of powder-coated metal at Angell & Giroux in Lincoln Heights.

As part of a growing community of civic-minded L.A. designers, Ravenhill also is dedicated to supporting L.A.’s industrial legacy, seeking out local manufacturers and fabricators to produce his products within a few miles from his Echo Park studio.

Pick up the Dustbin in the KCRW Store and proceeds will benefit KCRW.