Unusual projects & one-off commissions
Every so often an email arrives that starts “this is probably a strange question”. Those are our favourite ones. If you've had three workshops tell you no, or you can't work out which trade you're even supposed to be phoning, start here.
The kind of thing we mean
- Kinetic and mechanical pieces — things that move, turn, open or trigger on cue
- Interactive installations for exhibitions, museums and public spaces
- Art commissions and sculptural work at scale
- Replicas and reconstructions built from photographs, drawings or measurements
- Custom machines, jigs and rigs for other people who make things
- Prototypes and proof-of-concept builds that need to look finished, not printed
- Practical props and effects that have to actually work on camera
Why the odd jobs end up here
Most workshops are one trade. An unusual brief normally needs three or four — someone to model it, someone to cut it, someone to make it move, someone to make it look right. We have lasers, 3D printers, a CNC and a full woodshop in one building, so those handovers happen across a bench instead of across four quotes and six weeks of email.
How we de-risk a strange brief
- Feasibility first — an honest conversation about what's achievable for your money and your date. If we're not the right people, we'll say so and point you somewhere better suited.
- Test the hard part — we prototype the mechanism, joint or finish the whole thing depends on before the rest gets built.
- Agree the route and the number — you approve an approach and a costed estimate before the real spend starts.
- Build, install, and support it afterwards if it has to keep working.
Things we'll tell you straight
Some briefs aren't buildable for the money. Some are, but not by that date. We'd rather lose the job at the enquiry stage than halfway through a build, so you'll get a straight answer early. For anything connecting to mains electricity we work with a qualified partner electrician who handles connection and certification — you still deal with one point of contact.
What helps us answer quickly
- What it has to do — not what it has to be made of
- Where it lives, and who will be near it
- The date it has to exist by
- A rough budget, even a wide one
- Any reference — photos, film stills, a scribble
Related
Part of our prop making and large-scale fabrication work. See also large-scale props, bespoke design and the workshop.
Send us the strange one
Email enquiries@cobblestonecreative.co.uk and describe it however makes sense — a paragraph, a photo, a bad drawing. If you can tell us what it has to do and when, we can usually tell you within a day whether we're the right workshop for it.