A Frame Designed for the Upholsterer
I have a shelf in my studio dedicated entirely to the “ghosts”—those rejected prototypes that almost made it to the showroom floor. Last Tuesday, I was staring at a prototype…
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The Material Decides More Than the Drawing
I spent three weeks in 1998 obsessing over the silhouette of a walnut lounge chair, tweaking the rake of the backrest by mere millimeters until my eyes blurred. I thought…
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Metal and Wood and Their Different Natures
I can still smell the burnt linseed oil and the sharp, ozone tang of the grinder from that Tuesday in 2004. I was hunched over a workbench, staring at a…
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Installing Without Marking the Walls
I was standing in a client’s living room at three in the afternoon, staring at a six-foot walnut sideboard that suddenly looked like it had been designed for a different…
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Running a Weekend Course
I spent most of my morning digging through a cardboard box in the back of my studio, pulling out a series of failed chair joints that I’ve kept for twenty…
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Pairing Two Woods Without Stripes
I was staring at a slab of walnut and a piece of white oak last Tuesday, wondering why the hell I was still second-guessing a connection I’ve made a thousand…
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Why One Table Feels Right
I was staring at a prototype for a walnut lounge chair last Tuesday, surrounded by the usual graveyard of failed ideas, when it hit me. Most design textbooks treat proportion…
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A Groove That Fits the Panel
I was staring at a piece of walnut last Tuesday, my hand hovering over the router, paralyzed by the realization that I had planned the wrong depth for a sliding…
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Colour From Species Rather Than Stain
I spent the better part of last Tuesday staring at a slab of white oak that looked, quite frankly, like a mistake. I had spent three weeks obsessing over a…
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Repetition With One Deliberate Break
I was standing in my studio last Tuesday, staring at a pile of discarded veneer samples that most people would call trash, but I call my necessary failures. I was…
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