Design & Build
From concept to concrete.
Aparat is a Bay Area-based design studio and workshop, developing and producing our own designs as well as yours.
Aparat is a design studio and production workshop that offers design professionals, business owners and private clients an array of design, fabrication, creative direction and consulting services.
We design and build environments, custom furniture, fixtures and finishes, specializing in bespoke functions, forms, materials and mechanisms.
We can also help you develop a product or space of your own imagining.
Imagining, Problem-Solving, Building
When director Alper Böler moved from Istanbul to the Bay Area, he realized that fabrication, industrial or artisanal, cannot be done here with the same immediacy and collaboration that he grew up with and was shaped by in Turkey. In Istanbul, he was able to stand beside craftsmen in their workshops to produce custom work—ankle-deep in wood shavings or dusted with metal powder, his ears ringing with hammers on copper. Aparat is a collaborative way to bring together that knowledge of production with his design skills, and unite material problem-solving with creative insight.
Expertise & Experience
Aparat offers expertise and experience. Alper is an industrial and interior designer. As a veteran of CAD and Viz software with a range of hands-on engineering, prototyping, materials, and building experience, Alper doesn't just think about making designs, he makes them. Just as important, years of working with diverse makers has taught him how essential it is to listen closely and communicate clearly.
Artisanry, Not Assembly
Aparat is also prepared to find and tap the most appropriate resources, human or machine, for your project. In the San Rafael workshop, we can turn many materials into custom pieces. But we are also in contact with a network of workshops and factories in Turkey and elsewhere, which enables us to work with myriad materials and techniques from upholstery, blown glass and cast bronze to milled brass and carved marble. This means that we are not limited by our own limitations, but are able to sample knowledge and skills sometimes passed down through generations of artisans and tradesmen here and abroad.