The Alice Table: An Example of Fluid Design

 There have been two simple projects described in earlier posts that experienced evolution as their production progressed. I can barely recall a single project where this has not occurred to some degree, and as a matter of fact, I feel that it is the nature of design itself as guided by the creative process that forces fluid change on a project as it evolves from design to actual outcome.

The Alice Table was no exception as the design of the top changed during the course of the project. The top was originally to have edges trimmed with mitered corners. After the base of the table was completed, it started becoming clear that a top with mitered trim would not look right against the four very linear frames that made up the base. I decided therefore to make the top as a sort of frame and panel construction to compliment the basic frame construction of the base. I even ran a cope and stick profile along the entire front and back edges of the central laminated panel to join the mating front and back rails.

The cope and stick technique produced an interesting design element in that it produced a visually appealing exposed joinery detail at the front and back of the side edges of the table top. I had a decision to make at this point, and decided to go ahead and route a quarter round profile around the table top edge. This was done as a period detail to highlight the exposed cope and stick frame joinery, and then mirrored on the inner cross frame shelf to maintain the table within a table design concept.

The table had not taken on any specific design statement until this point, but now it appeared that my former work in producing historically inspired design helped to move the table in that direction. Going back to a time when I practiced woodworking as a profession through musical instrument building, the inclusion of a certain period element produced a design with historical inspiration. My dad used to say that water always flowed to seek its own level. I guess that proved true with the final outcome here.

The design elements as they evolved of basic frame, frame and panel, and profile detail combined to produce a visually integrated whole. I was fortunate in this project to have a client that understood and appreciated the creative process and its application. A better table resulted.

Update: The client posted this to her Facebook page.

THANK YOU EVERYONE WHO HELPED ME CELEBRATE A SIGNIFICANT BIRTHDAY LAST WEEK. THE CARDS, CALLS, EMAILS AND EVENTS JUST CAME COMING. THE HIGHLIGHT WAS THE DELIVERY OF "THE ALICE TABLE" THANK YOU, STEVE. I ENJOY IT MORE AND MORE EVERYDAY. BLESSINGS TO ALL OF YOU.
LOVE, ALICE

There's no better feeling than a good endorsement from a client after completing a project.

The Problem with Sales in a Difficult Economy

I opened a workshop here in Minnesota to produce work that would sell on consignment in local galleries, and doing it this way would allow me to design and build whatever I wanted. This was a model that worked in the past. The recession hit though, and gallery sales slowed way down and still have not recovered. One of the consignment galleries in fact closed this year.

So rather than stay with a model of design-build-sell that currently does not work, I have focused more time during the past few years on workshop and methods development rather than actual output, and some of that work is detailed here. For example, both the light fixture and candle holder projects taught me technique that I applied to the Alice Table commission just about to be completed.

The idea to build the candle holders came from a short pile of imported scrap wood that I had no use for, but felt that such beautiful wood should not end up thrown away. I built ten, and brought five to a retail gallery, but again there they sit proving that not even product mix is the answer.

I was recently asked though to donate something to a benefit auction held on the University campus. Normally this would not have been realistic, but wouldn't you know that I had five small objects sitting in a cabinet back at the workshop that were readily available to use in a perfect sort of marketing experiment. Therefore from the five candle holders remaining at the shop, I decided to donate one small and one large candle holder, being really interested in what value they bring at auction relative to their value appraised by staff at the gallery where the other five reside.

The auction is coming up next week, and its result may give me some useful information back. If not no harm, no foul. If I learn something useful though, I'll provide it in an update.

The Alice Table: Managing Visual Complexity

I completed the woodworking portion of the Alice Table two days ago, and posted a photo of the yet to be finished project. Someone pointed out to me that the table is really a table within a table. That person is correct. The two cross frames support an inner shelf, and that inner structure can be seen as a small table by itself.

The base of the table is made up of two side frames joined together by the two inner cross frames. The two inner frames fill space that would otherwise be empty in many other table designs, and often it is good to have empty or sufficient white space in a design. The inside cross frames though create a certain amount of visual complexity in addition to their practical function as simple structures that physically join the side frame assemblies together as well as support an inner shelf.

Yet the table appears unified because of repetition. Side and cross frames share the same fundamental architecture. The only difference besides being sized differently is in linear movement. The side frames extend from front to back while the cross frames extend from side to side. I designed each of the surfaces they support to convey that same linear movement through grain direction. The grain direction of the inner shelf runs its length from side to side to emphasize the same visual direction taken by the supporting cross frames. The grain direction of the teak panels and joining walnut rails of the table top runs from front to back to accomplish the same visual effect for the supporting side frames.

You might think that there could be tension created by using wood grain in this way. Similarly the two cross frames that fill the inner space could have contributed to a feeling of clutter. Not at all though. The design appears unified and well-proportioned, and does so because of effective use of repetition and linear movement. The table appears simple and foundational despite its relatively complex architecture.

Developing Ideas in the Internet Age

A blog entry appeared in a major woodworking journal recently with regard to a change that has come about concerning the development of ideas, especially with new forms of social interaction brought about by Internet-based social networking. I actually wrote a comment.

The entry can be found here.

http://blog.woodshopnews.com/tbaw/?p=744

The writer's viewpoint is generally in favor of what is now normally referred to as crowdsourcing, where ideas are solicited from a group of people. This is obviously now much easier within Internet groups using Twitter, Facebook, or an online forum for example, and is a concept that has grown in popularity. Read any history about major inventions though, and one gets the idea that sharing ideas so freely wasn't always popular. Most famous inventors were at one time or another involved in a patent lawsuit against a competitor. In fact, patents are specifically awarded to protect someone who intends to materially profit from his or her own unique idea.

So now if someone crowdsources an idea though, then because ownership of that idea no longer belongs to any one individual, I suppose that any profit from that idea would have to come from the implementation of that idea through manufacture. Most practicing artisans I know are both proud and protective of the ideas that give their work its own identity. Ideas are intellectual property, so to me the idea of crowdsourcing may not apply to all people in all situations.

Industrial-Retro-Indie-Hipster-Techno Research-Based Woodworking

All of the words used in the title of this entry have been used at one point or another to describe whether in complete or partial truth the design statement my current work is making. There are projects that actually pay the bills, and then because the economy has slowed down that activity, there are projects that are producing a body of knowledge or at least are adding to it.

There are aspects to a project I have coming up that I need to understand more completely before actually committing resources toward building it, so I decided to create a series of simple objects to prototype those aspects and their associated construction methods. The original purpose of this prototype set involved the design use of tungsten filament light bulbs, but as the project evolved so too did the objects used to hold the bulbs.

Those objects are the end result of an evolutionary process as there were several iterations of each that came before I arrived at the final set you see here. Each design iteration had fewer parts as time went on, but those parts became increasingly complex to build as I described in an earlier entry. The most significant development I think that came from this project was in the direct use of design model geometry to graphically generate computer numerically controlled tool paths. An artisan studio or workshop is a high-mix, low-volume build environment, and being able to adapt methods quickly to different design requirements to achieve acceptable build time becomes more important if a business case is involved.

A good reference source for some of the underlying principles that I currently attempt to address through prototyping design work can be found at the website for the University of Wisconsin-Madison Center for Quick Response Manufacturing.

The Incremental Cost of Part Complexity

I was introduced to parametric solids modeling about the time I completed building the pipe organ for Zion Lutheran. The leading program at that time was and still is SolidWorks. Although I wanted to use solids modeling then, I continued to use 2D computer drafting because of the high cost of 3D design programs including SolidWorks.

A few years ago, the cost of a reasonably well featured solids modeling program became low enough that I could justify incorporating it into my design work. Now I finally had a real engineering design program to use. The first thing I immediately noticed was a reduction in errors in the workshop. A good solids design requires that one accurately model each part and assembly, and having those represented in drawing format let me clearly see each part feature, and the relationship of each part to its parent assembly, in three dimensions. All of that helped me to build better in the workshop.

But something else happened that I did not count on. The parts I designed started becoming more complex. Parts began containing more features as parts started taking on more function within an assembly while the assemblies themselves began to have less parts overall. Look at the exploded view of the assembly above as an example. The assembly itself has only four parts. That seems simple enough. But look at the notched rail. That part is designed to hold a component mounted through the hole located along its top. The notches themselves locate the assembly along rails that are part of a larger assembly. And the two vertical slot mortises receive the tenons of two tenoned cross members that hold it all together.

Each of these features, the notches, hole, and mortises, must be accurately and sequentially machined until that one part is completed. The interesting thing I find now is that the cost of producing each feature is not simply the time it takes to machine that feature, but the additive cost of producing each preceding feature if a mistake is made while producing that feature. This is a problem because anyone who has done any woodworking knows that the activity is inherently error prone. A mistake at the end means having to go back and do a lot of work all over again, all the blade changes, tool setups, sizing, etc., and all for one part.

The projects that I've journaled here reflect an iterative change in part design and part to assembly relationship for me. All seem deceptively simple enough, but all are providing me with valuable experience in designing and building within a new paradigm. I've known others who have built in this style of complex efficiency and part economy especially among the German pipe organ builders. I find it an interesting and intelligent way to build.

The Alice Table: An Introduction

I recently received a commission to build a small side table for a client. Obviously that client's name is Alice. She asked me to build a table for her using teak so that it would match her current set of furniture. I suggested using walnut along with teak to keep cost reasonable. I often use more than one type of wood in my work to provide variation in color which should be obvious by now.

Alice has a degree in art education, and I kept this in mind as I did the design work making sure to use color and space well in an otherwise functional object. We went through a number of design iterations together by email before deciding on this open frame form. The design has two cross frames that connect the side frames to each other to break up what would have otherwise been open space. The design becomes more visually interesting while the cross frames support an inner shelf. Alice can use it to keep a book or magazine on while keeping the top clear for something more important. Like a glass of wine for instance.

Alice and I agreed on price and terms this week. Work will begin right after I complete building something to prototype several design and construction concepts to be used in another project. More on that in the following post.