The Elevated Surface: concepts and joinery for wooden tables

This course introduces students to fundamental knowledge and skills required for solid timber design and construction. Students will explore generative design strategies to think outside of culturally entrenched forms or fixed archetypes of tables. Experimenting with both concepts and structures, students will consider new table designs that go beyond the constraints of functionalism. The course is taught through a combination of readings, lectures, discussions, demonstrations, supervised practice and critiques that exposes students to relevant technology, theory, history, design and making processes. Students will investigate how to incorporate structures, surfaces and allowance for wood movement through designing and building furniture pieces that feature an elevated surface. Topics covered include observation/inventory of existing forms, design ideation, scale drawings, timber selection, joinery using hand tools and machines, and other relevant woodworking processes. Students will work both during and outside of class to to realise samples, models, and a full-scale furniture project. Workplace Health and Safety (WHS) instruction is an integral part of this course.