VOCON Custom Installation

A Piece of Cleveland crafted this site-specific conference table from wood recovered during the renovation of VOCON’s 2nd floor offices. The building is listed on the National Register of Historic Places and to preserve its history, APOC upcycled the floor joists, designing and installing a custom conference table made of Douglas Fir and other soft woods.

The Neo Classical Revival style building was constructed by AA Lane Construction Company in 1921. AA Lane was a prominent general contractor at the time and from the 1920s to the 1940s, the company renovated many buildings at the Case School of Applied Science, now Case Western Reserve University.

Karl Best and Edward G. Hoefler of the Best & Hoefler Architecture Firm were the engineers. Best and Hoefler were partners from 1921 to1927. The Templar building is the only commercial structure they built together, mostly designing Tudor style homes in Shaker Heights. Prior to partnering with Best, Hoefler was an architect with the Austin Company and in 1929 he and John Kalsch Jr., ran the firm Kalsch & Hoefler.

Originally home to Templar Farrell Motor Sales, the building was used as a showroom for “pre-assembled” cars. Templar motors operated in Cleveland from 1917 to 1924. The engine that powered their cars was the Templar Vitalic Top Valve Motor. Advertising themselves as "The pioneer builder of quality small cars, Templar produced 6,000 luxury vehicles.

Templar offered innovative features such as electric searchlights, tilt steering wheels (nicknamed "fat man's" wheels), a folding Kodak camera, compass, tire pumps and air compressors. Each car had twenty-seven coats of paint and wheels made of naturally polished wood.

Just as Templar motors made cars with the utmost attention to detail, VOCON is also known for its, creative and quality architecture and design. We at APOC believe that this conference table serves as a symbol—bridging Cleveland’s inventive past with its innovative future.

Latest News on Products

APOC is continuously testing and retesting its products for durability, desirability and usefulness. Looking forward to better weather up ahead, one of our designers - PJ designed and produced a set of outdoor furniture. The tables he created all go well with these two styles of chairs.


We call it a deck chair, but it can be put anywhere around the house!


This outside chair is also made of entirely reclaimed materials!

Each of the chairs has a version with arms.



This is the VOCON installation, finished. The materials for the wall piece and table were recovered during the renovation of their space. In a full circle, the wood was rescued, and then upcycled back into the space!

More Upcycled Products

APOC creates more than conference tables (although we love them, too) and to prove it, we're including more images from our Flickr photostream.



A Custom Wall Installation



A Custom Bathroom Vanity (from 1425 W. 65th)



A Table with a custom stain



and Kitchen countertops (from 1425 W. 65th)!

Recycling of Stanard School

The deconstruction of Stanard School was an opportunity for the entire community to participate in re-using materials otherwise destined for a landfill. Besides upcycling material into new uses and the re-birth of lumber, APOC facilitated the recycling of thousands of bricks that comprised Stanard School.

In collaboration with Councilman Joe Cimperman, APOC provided bricks free of charge to community members as well as to the urban gardeners who will be using the Stanard property for urban agriculture and youth education in the future. This land use is permitted by Cleveland's unique Urban Garden Zoning law.

Community Members Clean & Pallet Bricks

Lumber about to be Re-Born

APOC Volunteers on Stanard!
K. Starinsky, T. Starinsky, M. DiDonato, A. Smith, N. Taxel, E. Taxel, K. Nagorski