Industrial designer buys firehouse in Central Falls

Seven months after graduating from Rhode Island School of Design, Jr Neville Songwe was weighing job offers from Asia against staying in Providence to commercialize a concept to make the interiors of police cars safer and easier for officers to use.

At the time, Songwe lacked the capital to build a functional prototype, employ support staff or have his own work studio. In a cover story in Providence Business News’ Feb. 27 edition, he said: “If there’s not a way to find funding in Rhode Island, I’d close up [my company], and I’d get a job in Asia.”

Yet three months later, investors are backing his police car project, giving him enough money for staff and a down payment on a building in Central Falls, where he plans to operate his company, Joneso Design.

“It’s an amazing thing when all of a sudden people are putting down money on your ideas,” said Songwe, who graduated from RISD last spring with a master’s degree in industrial design. “The question was not if I could deliver – the question was, how I am going to deliver?”

March was a big month for the 31-year-old designer. He received an undisclosed sum from a silent partner in Florida. Then he won a contract from students at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Sloan School of Management to design a computer-enhanced exercise machine they had developed.

Next, Songwe signed a purchase and sales agreement to buy a 9,000-square-foot former firehouse at 555 Broad St., across from the Central Falls City Hall, that had been used in recent years as shops at street level and offices on the second floor.

Nelson Gregor, a retired U.S. Army captain who serves on Joneso’s volunteer board of directors, found the building in Central Falls after it became clear that space in downtown Providence was unaffordable for the young company.

Songwe said he also plans to pay friend and fellow designer Francesco Grillo to come here from Italy to serve as creative director for the company. He and Grillo became friends while studying in the mid-1990s at an industrial design school in Rome.

With the exception of Songwe’s “Brijo” police car concept – named after his mother, Brigette, and father, Joachim – most of the Cameroonian’s designs cater to people with disabilities. He has designed a more stable wheelchair for paraplegics who play sports, as well as a device that helps deaf athletes detect important sounds.

His latest project is to develop a cup with a shape that prevents spillage. The cup was designed for people with ailments such as Parkinson’s disease. He and Grillo are working with local neurological specialists to perfect the design.

“People with neurological disorders have not been dealt with properly,” he said. “They’ve been given baby cups, and their self-esteem is a huge issue.”

Meanwhile, Providence Mayor David N. Cicilline has told Songwe that he would look into donating a retired police cruiser for Joneso’s prototype of the “Brijo” interior.

Hazards abound in today’s police cars, according to Songwe, with mounted laptops at officers’ sides and multiple switches on the dashboard that force officers’ eyes off the road. His design moves the computers and other equipment to the center console and more control switches to the steering wheel. In October, Songwe plans to showcase a working prototype of “Brijo” at the International Association of Chiefs of Police conference in Boston.

Due to heavy usage, 15 to 20 percent of police and security cars in the country are replaced every year, creating a large market for Songwe’s design, said Edward M. Mazze, a director with Joneso and retired dean of the College of Business at the University of Rhode Island, in a February interview.

Joneso has taken a difficult road in the industry by focusing on proprietary products rather than more predictable contract services, Songwe said. But he believes that the in-house designs at the firm will set it apart from others.

“It’s where we are needed,” he said. “Designers, we are sworn to solve problems, and hopefully that is the work that Joneso will keep doing.”