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[mikemac9]

FINAL work in Furniture Design

The CRAFT & DIGITAL in FURNITURE DESIGN elective wrapped up in December. It was an experimental class we ran in conjunction with the Wood Craft majors. So far I’ve only written about the CNC Shaving Horse we produced in the first project.

For the 2nd project we joined with the Wood Craft majors to build a chair/stool from a tree. Ideally we won’t use any power tools! Just hand tools. We started by splitting out larger pieces for legs and thinner pieces for rungs from a freshly cut tree using a mallet and froe and hatchet as needed.

Our tools:

Logged marked out for legs and rungs:

Devante taking a massive swing at it:

Here goes Isabella:

Even Connor gave it a go from his knee scooter:

After a long morning the crew had gotten their frustrations out and we had a nice pile of split wood. (Shane and Dan not in photo):

In subsequent weeks we worked the split wood down to size using Drawknives:

Once we got the rungs to size we had to dry them in a simple cardboard box kiln:

After drying the rungs the tenons had to be shaped to size and the sides scraped down:

After final shaping of the legs the stools were ready for assembly. Using a brace and bit we had to drill the mortises by hand:

Once the frames were assembled we had to weave our seats and voilà we had our finished handmade products:

With the amazing and truly brilliant faculty. Mike McAllister (ID) left front and Don Miller (WOOD) right front :

And here are the beautiful chairs that the wood majors built:

and a couple more beauty shots:

Many thanks to Don Miller who went out of his way to help us neophytes. 

And congratulations to the participating ID students:

Maria-Elena Alberto, Dan Bier, Devante Cordero, Isabelle Frascella, Casey Gwardyak, Shane Mastronardi, and Connor McAllister.

Also many thanks to the WOOD majors:

Nick Flaherty, Addie Métivier, Will McDonald, and Kenny Cheng.

The END:

[mikemac9]

In Junior Studio we are currently designing accessories and hacks to make a kitchen more inclusive and usable by elderly and people with disabilities.  This studio asks the question - as designers how can we support the growing trend toward "aging in place" which allows people to continue to live in their own home rather than move into an institution. How might we modify the kitchen so elderly and people in wheelchairs can cook for themselves.

Six grad students in Occupational Therapy at Thomas Jefferson University and their professor Kim (standing in top photo) met with our Junior Studio. Each team presented their research and we discussed their starting concepts, gaining the expertise from an OTs perspective.

Afterward the OTs demonstrated how they assess the capabilities and issues of a person with a disability. Mitchell (bottom photo) was asked to perform various tasks in the kitchen while his issues were assessed. This input was very valuable and we'll see how it impacts the evolving designs....