This white oak coffee table is the piece from my Masters In Fine Arts of which I am most proud.
I felt that designers generally rely too much on materiality, or on ornament when they are designing a surface to be the focus of a piece of furniture. So inspired by the work of Matthias Pliessnig and Joseph Walsh, I set myself the task of making a table that celebrated the space between things, pattern and rhythm. The strands of the surface go all the way through the frame and end at the edge of the table rather than be bounded by the frame: This surface is part of a greater scene and the strips of oak tell of a longer path.
Over 400 different angled half lap joints were machined with a CNC router. Each piece of oak was steam bent into a large mould. It was hugely difficult and I risked my entire degree on it - luckily I pulled it off. The below photos show the final object and the work in progress.
