Product Architect: Julie Smith-Clementi

“We called our company notNeutral because we have a point of view,” says president and CEO Julie Smith-Clementi. Founded in 2001 by Smith-Clementi and fellow principals at Los Angeles–based architecture firm Rios Clementi Hale Studios (RCHS), notNeutral now has products in five categories—Gift, Dine, Home Decor, Garden, and Kids—that range from the museum-store staple City Plates to plastic children’s furniture. BB2 (which stands for Baby Boomer Too) is based on a line of furniture crafted for an RCHS-designed childcare center in 1992. Tweaked to reduce the number of fasteners, the chairs (shown), tables, and beds are shipped in a flat-pack. The updated BBO2—a collaboration with Duluth, Minn.–based Loll—came out last year and is made from 100 percent post-consumer high-density polyethylene.