Lauren Krupsaw F14

Shivani Jain Jacqueline Yeung F15 F15

Aileena Gray F15

Furniture Design and Construction, Fall 2016, 48400

Brian Bollens F15 Daniel Gomez Latorre F15

48400 Furniture Design and Construction Studio, Fall 2016, Syllabus Instructor: Scott Smith Architecture Shop, CFA A9 Monday, Wednesday, and Friday 1:30 to 4:30

IMPORTANT NOTE: Students enrolled in this class must come to the FIRST class with several sketches of 3 different types of furniture to build. Course Description There is a creative core in people which is much more closely related to the hand than to the head. This core is universal and is the source of the connection that all people can feel with something well made. It is the source of an intrinsic meaning that handmade objects have and that all people understand. This class will attempt to connect the inexperienced maker with the universal meanings that emerge in objects made by hand, and sweat, effort, commitment and persistence.

The course will teach you to trust your eye, hand, and intuition. This trust is the substance of self- reliance. Handmade objects express the perception, physicality, sensitivity, and passion of the maker. Making things in this class is like cooking from scratch. Constructing an object from scratch opens levels of design opportunity not available when you select options off the shelf. It initiates an intimacy with the design process from inception through final production. It links form with material through the hand and touches you in a way not accessible through regular architectural practice. It can provide deep personal satisfaction.

This furniture studio will seek to generate form in direct response to the material, guided by the capabilities of machines, the experience of the maker and the tools available, while responding to ergonomic considerations. The emphasis will be on the use hand tools and power machinery. It is primarily a non-digital studio. Computer aided design will be permitted only to facilitate the hand.

The studio this fall is open both to students who have already taken shop minis and electives, and those who haven’t taken any shop courses beyond the first year. But everyone who takes the studio must come with a willingness and desire to acquire, practice, and perform the skills needed to give form to the idea.

The principle objective of this course is to complete a functional object. Often however, completion is not achieved. The course is also about finding a path- exploring it, assimilating the lessons it offers and integrating them into a coherent travel log of your journey. The travel log is the object, but if the object is not complete this “travel log” may become the point of final evaluation.

Underlying the course is the notion that modern sculpture provides the aesthetic context for modern furniture making. The studio will start with a project known as the “little Noguchi”. Noguchi is one of a list of sculptors about which the students will be required to report. The project is an assemblage of interlocking slabs following Noguchi’s aesthetic and vocabulary. Noguchi used stone slabs in his sculpture, the students will use wood. The project will put all class members on a common footing from the beginning.

Upon completion of the little Noguchi, work will begin on the main project of the semester. Students who have taken shop classes already will choose the piece of furniture they will build within specific parameters. Students without this shop experience will be assigned the piece of furniture.

This year, the construction of at least one full size prototype of your design will be used to introduce students to the making of wood joints and the best fabrication techniques, and to resolve design. Great emphasis will be placed on producing furniture that is beautifully made, functional, durable and comfortable. That is, those qualities Vitruvius said architecture must have: utilitas (functionality), firmitas (structure and stability), venustas (aesthetics/beauty).

The studio will require hand work in drawing, design and fabrication. Computers may be used to assist design in generating alternatives/variations, but the final iteration of the design will be hand drawn full size on ply. All wood fabrication will involve non digital tools and machinery. This will serve to strengthen those important links between hand and eye/mind, perception and intuition, touch and understanding. The development of these connections between body and nervous system will be established, practiced and reinforced through repetition to promote muscle memory that is so essential in all sports and performance skills. Similarly this linkage connects the eye with hand to make drawing more automatic and the representation of an idea /image more spontaneous and expressive and immediate.

Become familiar with a number of significant modern sculptors and wood workers:

August Rodin, Isamu Noguchi, Constantine Brancusi, Henry Moore, Alberto Giacometti, Jose Rivera, Alexander Calder, Thadeus Mosley, Eduardo Chillida, Louise Nevelson, David Smith, Martin Puryear

Wendell Castle, , , Stephen Hogbin, , Thomas Hucker, Hank Gilpin, , Wharton Esherick, , Tom Loeser.

Course Goals & Objectives: • To learn more about the basic qualities of materials by their direct use. • To acquire and improve the hand and machine skills necessary for good craft. • To understand how the choice of process and the qualities of materials affect design. • To develop a general knowledge of concepts and approaches to woodwork and design in contemporary studio furniture. • To develop a design sense which is informed by the fabrication process so that forms, structure and details speak about the methods with which they are made. • To make a well constructed and designed functional object. • To help the student plan a project that is within the scope of the course in terms of time and technique. • To appreciate the inherent meaning that handcraft and labor can bring to an object. • To examine the relationship between beauty, meaning, and craft. • Develop understanding of the logic of sequence of fabrication. • Develop and strengthen the connection between hand and eye.

Projects for Fall 2015 Furniture Studio

1) Make a small sculpture like Isamu Noguchi’s 1945 interlocking shaped slap sculptures out of wood. Use the same structural techniques, methods of interlock, and visual vocabulary. See project statement 2) Decide on a single piece of furniture to make. The objects must include some curvature. Make axonometric sketches AND orthographic plan and elevations of the single piece or the two together. IMPORTANT NOTE: Students enrolled in this class must come to the FIRST class with several sketches of 3 different types of furniture to build. Typical Assignments and Schedule (subject to change): First 3 weeks • Little Noguchi • Make 3 sketches of variations for each model (nine total) • Making 1 ½” models of a design proposal • Make a 3” = 1’ 0” (quarter size) model showing joinery and actual fabrication technique of strongest idea. Fourth Week to Mid Semester • Full size drawing • Full size prototype in pine, poplar, or bass (of the whole object, not just a connection) Second Half of Semester • Construction of the actual object in selected materials.

Reading List: Required: Miscellaneous handouts The Nature and Art of Workmanship by David Pye, Cambridge University Press (to be issued) Recommended: Fine Wood Working on Planes and Chisels, The Taunton Press Designing Furniture by Seth Stem, The Taunton Press Tage Frid Teaches , Book 1-Joinery, The Taunton Press Understanding Wood by Bruce Hoadley, The Taunton Press The Unknown Craftsman by Soetsu Yanagi Fine Woodworking on Joinery, The Taunton Press The Fine Art of Cabinet Making by James Krenov, Van Nostrand Reinhold Co. The Art of Making Furniture by John Makepeace, Sterling Publishing Co. Tage Frid Teaches Woodworking, Book 2- Shaping and Veneering, The Taunton Press

Grading: The completion and quality of each assignment will be evaluated. The mid semester grade will be derived from these assignments. Attendance, participation, involvement, and design development will be factored into this grade as well. This is your major design course. It is expected that you give it the highest priority. The principle objective of this course is to complete a functional object. Often however, completion is not achieved. The course is also about finding a path- exploring it, assimilating the lessons it offers and integrating them into a coherent travel log of your journey. The travel log is the object, but if the object is not complete this “travel log” may become the point of final evaluation.

Assignments should be done thoroughly and thoughtfully. Hasty sketches done immediately before class are not acceptable. Alternatives to ideas and experimentation should always be documented.

The final grade will be derived primarily from the built objects, however, again, attendance, involvement, and design development will be considered in the grade. The objects will be evaluated for design, craft, function, solidity, understanding of materials, sensitive use of materials, and resolving issues into a coherent and harmonious object.

While regular attendance, consistent involvement, good design, and total completion will always result in a high grade, the award of an A also depends upon harder to define “extra” elements that can include difficulty, risk, superior craft and design, as well as fulfillment of what a student is capable of producing.

As stated in the student handbook, “In no case can a student expect to receive a passing grade without regular attendance and participation in class”. Simply submitting projects, regardless of quality, at mid-semester or at the end of the semester will not be sufficient for a passing grade without regular attendance.

Participation and regular attendance is extremely important and will be monitored. Absences must be excused. Two unexcused absences are cause for lowering your grade one letter grade. Being late twice will be viewed as one unexcused absence. See the student handbook for definition of excused absence.

Students must be prepared to work during class.

Incomplete projects force the instructor to grade attendance and performance rather than the object and design. It upsets the level field of evaluation, creating different grading criteria. In addition, the failure to complete work on time can cause cancellation of the final review. Guest reviewers will only be invited if there is sufficient completed work to view and discuss.

Tools and Materials: Students must provide their own utility knife or Exacto blade, straight edge, 5 mm pencil and #2 pencil with eraser, and a six inch ruler with fine line etched measurements in 16ths, 32nds, and 64ths of an inch. Aluminum straight edges with printed measurements are unsatisfactory. Materials for exercises and final projects may be purchased from the shop inventory. Materials not in stock will be the student’s responsibility to acquire. Materials for the exercises should cost less than $25. Materials for the final projects may run between $75 and $350. The shop will provide most other tools (although assembling your own tool collection is encouraged). Advice on the best tools to get is available. Storage: Limited storage space is provided in the form of compartments in the storage room off the pinup hallway on the mezzanine. Materials, works in progress, and personal tools and supplies may be stored in these compartments (with your name clearly visible). Put your name on every piece of wood or material which is important. Security cannot be guaranteed. Shop tools should not be kept in these boxes (they must be returned to the tool room).