Like the Golden Gate Bridge that looms across the Bay from San Francisco’s historic Fort Mason Center, Greens Restaurant is a Bay Area icon. With close ties to the San Francisco Zen Center, the restaurant has embodied an ethos of attentive living and eating for over thirty years, heralding a new age of vegetarian cuisine. I recently presented my prototype Greens Chair, which I was commissioned to design by the restaurant’s management team, and was truly honored to have it pass their rigorous requirements of functionality and aesthetics. The Greens management team includes acclaimed chef Annie Somerville and at least one ordained zen Buddhist priest, and everyone took turns testing the chair with earnest focus. The team agreed that the chair encourages mindfulness for both diners and staff, which is the highest compliment to me.

Tagged: aesthetics, chair design, deep craft, furniture design, green design, greens restaurant, scott Constable, slow design, windsor chair, woodworking, zen center

Taking a break under a giant bluegum eucalyptus on Whitaker Bluff

The eucalyptus was planted extensively throughout California by Australians during the Gold Rush for use as timber. They mistakenly thought the wood to be well suited for railroad ties, but the trees took differently to the soil and tended to grow in spirals, the grain twisting when cured.

“They went on to note that the promise of eucalyptus in California was based on the old virgin forests of Australia. This was a mistake as the young trees being harvested in California could not compare in quality to the centuries-old eucalyptus timber of Australia. It reacted differently to harvest. The older trees didn’t split or warp as the infant California crop did. There was a vast difference between the two, and this would doom the California eucalyptus industry.”

Santos, Robert L. (1997). “Seeds of Good or Seeds of Evil?”. The Eucalyptus of California. California State University.

Ene, Aili and I have been enjoying cycling the ranch roads West of Petaluma, where the eucalyptus were planted in lines along ridges and roadways as windbreak. I’ve used the wood in several projects and love its grain character, though its hardness and twisted growth patterns make it difficult to work. Several years ago I developed a chair design (see below) that capitalizes on the inherent attributes of the wood, which I found well-suited to sliding dovetail joints and narrow dimensions, which are less prone to twisting.

The Euc Chair (1995), which I developed after the Oakland Hills fire, when there was an abundance of eucalyptus cut for fire breaks.

Tagged: california flora, craft, deep craft, green design, woodworking, wowhaus

I made this sketch of a sixteenth century dining chair I saw at the Philadelphia Museum of Art. The chair is thought to be either English or Scandinavian in origin, and we did see many like it at folk museums last summer while traveling around Norway and Estonia. The type is well suited for production on a human-powered pole lathe, like the one I designed for use at Mildred’s Lane, and might be a good starting point in developing a unique Chair for Mildred’s Lane in the future. I plan to experiment with the design as I complete my own pole lathe on the Wowhaus compound.

Tagged: chair design, deep craft, furniture design, mildred's lane, pole lathe, scandinavian design, scott Constable, wowhaus

modified Windsor chair concept with steam-bent, bundled parts

Most of my furniture design over the past ten years or so has developed either from a particular need or from the properties of a particular material, usually wood. Lately I’ve been wanting to broaden my target by channeling my resources into the creation of a signature chair, a Deepcraft icon that adds to the canon of classic chair design. One of the goals of this experimental site is to unpack exactly what that means and hopefully discover how to translate a design philosophy into a truly sustainable production model in the process.

If and when I succeed, the thinking behind the chair will fold into the chair’s broad appeal as one of life’s Simple Good Things and I will assuage any guilt about burdening consumer culture with yet more stuff. More ambitiously, the chair will stand in for a philosophy of design with the potential to more broadly influence the built environment and contribute to the (critique of) public taste. Ultimately, my interest is in how the natural and the built environments can work in congruency to suggest mutually beneficial loops. What follows are some of the discursive questions I have that guide my thinking in the process:

NATURAL:

• How has ‘nature’ been framed in Western culture historically, especially related to society expanding into new or unknown territory?
• What are and have been the natural conditions most conducive to human habitation?
• What are examples of human habitation actually ‘improving’ the ecology of a particular place?
• How can the science of ecology inform how people occupy land?
• How has the literature of ‘nature’ (Romanticism) influenced the built environment?
  
• What effect have natural disasters had on the psychology of place? How have people responded to catastrophic change and by extension, how might we anticipate and intercept a global response to the fall-out of climate change?

BUILT:

• In what setting have people been the happiest (most productive, inter-dependent, convivial, cooperative, healthy, etc.)?
• What motivates people to want something beyond basic needs? But, what are the minimal requirements for providing basic needs to ensure rudimentary contentment?
• What have been the socio-economic conditions leading to the longevity of forms of vernacular origin historically?
• Relatedly, when have these conditions been conducive to well-being across social strata?
• What values underlie the concept of ‘good design’?
• How has the notion of ‘taste’ been made manifest in the built environment?
• How have people consistently changed/remained the same throughout the ages, related to concepts of well-being?

Tagged: aesthetics, chair design, craft manifesto, deep craft, green design, mildred's lane, scott Constable, sustainability, windsor

I rode my bike to scout the Estero Americano over the weekend, the body of water dividing Western Marin and Sonoma counties. Almost exactly a year ago I made my first post on this weblog after a paddle on the Estero to explore the availability of sea grasses like bulrush for a furniture-making experiment. I’ve done some research over the past year into native basketry using these materials, and am ready for another round of experimentation. Following a winter with low precipiation, I was pleased to find the Estero flooded and will make another exploratory paddle this week.

Pomo basket

Tagged: california coast, deep craft, ecology, pomo basket, sea grass

The more time I spend away from the urban grid, the more I fall under the spell of non-rectilinear geometries. Straight lines and right angles are on the wane in my imagination, replaced by radial, spiral and stellate forms wherever I roam. I have a new appreciation for domes and geodesic thinking, and increasingly want to reflect this way of experiencing nature in the things I make. I’m beginning to experiment with a structure that features a stellate geometry, using traditional materials and techniques associated with chair bodgering. Whenever I design a structure I begin by meditating on the system of joinery (both metaphorically and practically), and how to optimize the interplay of strength, economy and durability. I’d like to reduce this structure (a chair, hopefully) to just one repeated structural component, and comissioned the blacksmith Jason Takuchi-Krist to fabricate a batch of sixty degree angle irons (below) with which I can test some ideas.

Tagged: blacksmithing, bodgering, dome, geodesic, geometry, innovation, star, starfish, traditional craft

Aili took her Windsor Longboard  for a test spin and loved how it handled- it carves  with ease and feels rock steady going fast. The camber is just right, with just enough flex to ease road vibration and pump on a quick turn.

I’m now taking advance orders for the deck on my GOODS page while I tool up for production and procure materials. I’ll be making a limited run, collector’s edition longboard with my remaining material inventory, and am excited to offer it for sale to skaters who value true craftsmanship, old school performance and innovative eco-design.

Tagged: craftsmanship, deep craft, eco design, green product, longboard, skateboard deck, sustainable materials

My first Windsor Longboard experimental deck is a head-turner. My friends at Quinn Brothers Board Shop in Sebastopol, CA took to the ‘uber old school’ spirit and helped me rock the deck with super wide trucks and generic wheels; note the ‘rasta’ bolt heads, the board’s only fanfare. After some road testing I plan to make a limited production run to test market, beginning with local board shops and the GOODS pages of this site.

Aili will help road test the first deck

Tagged: california coast, green design, green products, longboard, skateboard, skateboard deck, slow design, windsor chair

My prototype Windsor Longboard is nearing completion.  I shaped the outer contours with my favorite Italian-made, mini spokeshaves. I have a set of three but use the one pictured above for almost everything- its rockered base allows for the most delicate control. Over the weekend I plan to mount trucks and wheels and test its performance.

Tagged: , longboard, skateboard, skateboard deck, slow design, windsor chair

clamping the deck’s laminates over a contoured armature for camber

I made good progress with my longboard skatedeck experiment. I built a clamping armature with a gradual contour to give the deck adequate camber, over-compensating slightly for the inevitable ’springback’. I reversed the camber at the tail of the deck to lift the rear of the board to clear the ground and for leverage to spin the skateboard or brake its motion if necessary. I call this a ‘rooster tail’, although it functions more like a ‘chicken tail’. I’ve always followed the adage from boatbuilding that every design feature should serve at least three functions; the third feature here is really yet to be determined, but should be revealed with some test riding.

deck camber/clamping armature; cured deck, ready for shaping (above)

I was surprised and delighted to see the glue oozing through the pours on the exposed surface of the upper deck, indicating deep penetration. While I worked on the Windsor Longboard in the shop, I boiled two chickens on the stove of my shop kitchen (every workshop needs one) in preparation for making tamales for our monthly ‘dinner club’ with four other nearby families. I love cooking this way, when it’s an extension of other tasks at hand.

The next day, I waited until all of the kids arrived for our group dinner before removing the cured deck from the armature, wanting them to help remove the clamps and see the process. The deck came off of the form beautifully, with very little ’springback’. The kids approved of the shape and agreed to help test it when complete.

Tagged: bent lamination, green design, longboard, skateboard, slow design, windsor chair