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The Stories Behind ‘Furnishing Utopia’s’ Shaker-Inspired Objects
In anticipation of their exhibition opening this Friday at New York Design Week’s Sight Unseen OFFSITE, all 11 design studios involved in the “Furnishing Utopia” show inspired by classic Shaker Designs shared exclusive insight into their design process and final designs.
Here each studio tells Core77 the story behind their individual projects—the Shaker objects that inspired their designs and the production processes for some of their pieces—in their own words.
Studio Gorm
We have always admired the Shaker oval boxes and black Ash baskets—both are practical, light, and their forms are derived from the optimal use of material. Our baskets are made in a similar way to oval boxes but take advantage of modern materials, like a very thin and flexible bamboo plywood and a solid plywood base. The forms are a result of the material properties and are similar to the shape transitions found in Shaker baskets, which start as rectangles and finish as more rounded forms at the top.
We were inspired by several different trestle tables, for our dining/work table, the Shakers developed many variations, a very practical table typology that they commonly used for dining. They are light and strong and the legs don’t get in the way with a full table of diners. There are several that intelligently used metal hardware to assemble and disassemble them. The Shakers were regularly moving things around, so they often designed larger pieces to come apart. We wanted to create a practical table that could be easily assembled and taken apart.
We designed a very simple table with contrasting oversized graphic hardware and a sliding dovetail connection that keeps the solid wood top flat but also allows for the top to slide apart in order to allow cords and power adapters to pass through. We were also looking at construction details from other objects, like a dovetailed connection on a shave horse, and some large hand-forged bolts on a bed.
Norm Architects
We were primarily inspired by the molds used by the Shakers to bend veneer into shape for baskets and boxes. The molds they use have holes in them, which are used during the making process to hold the veneer in place, but they also come in handy as a storage solution—the Shakers had a tradition of hanging objects on the walls, everything from chairs to trays and tools, to organize interior spaces and make them easier to clean. That level of thought, not only about the object itself, but also about its ultimate place in the house, was very inspiring to us.
A little exotic detail of the design is that the trays are actually stained with black Sumi ink, as a salute to traditional Japanese design. We wanted to draw this parallel because in Japan they have trays and baskets made of bent wood that are very similar to the Shaker ones, and, of course, many of the general philosophies behind Shaker design and traditional Japanese design are perfectly aligned.
As craftsmen and inventors, the Shakers were distilling design to its purest form. Through this process, we tried to see if we could simplify the baskets and trays even more than the Shakers had done. The simpler you make a design, the more important the quality of the details becomes—and that’s always the tricky part. For example, figuring out how the veneer sides would meet the wood base was one of the more challenging parts of the process from a technical point of view.
Tom Bonamici
I loved the idea of a real chandelier, non-electrified. I made a bunch of funky little prototypes, tried them out at home and totally fell in love with having a few more options for lighting with candles.
I felt a desire to be more patient while making these objects. The Shaker artifacts I’ve seen are so perfectly made—that takes a vast amount of patience and willingness to slow down and do it right. I hope to keep some of that patience in my work from now on!
Making the little cylindrical cleats that are used to suspend the chandelier and the sconces was pretty tricky. I ended up using a machine lathe to ensure everything was centered and copacetic. Otherwise, I used almost all hand tools for the shaping and cutting. Both the chandelier and sconces have traditional wood joints, which were used a great deal by the Shakers. And I didn’t use computer programs, relying instead on hand sketching and physical prototyping.
Studio Tolvanen
The Brother Shelf was inspired by utilitarian shelving in the Brethren Workshop at Shaker Village. It uses nothing more than the essential geometry needed to stand upright, but nevertheless has a playful appearance. The array of triangular crossbars in the Brother Shelf are a simple solution that keep it from leaning to the side and also eliminate the need for messy cross brace hardware.
Consequently, the shelf can be used either one-sided (against the wall) or two-sided (as a room divider). The Sister Table is an unassuming coffee table that takes cues from a stone sink in the Sister’s Dairy at the Shaker Village. The table has friendly rounded corners, a handy carrying handle and a lip around the edge that holds everything neatly in place.
Being Finnish, we were drawn to the traditional Shaker objects because they share a common desire for purpose. Perhaps it’s not specific objects that inspired us but more so the details, the use of material and purposefulness thoughtfully crafted into every item they created. Even though there is a lack of ornamentation in the objects, a sense of beauty comes through in their intentionality.
Hallgeir Homstvedt
I approached the design process with our modern society in mind and looked for new situations and construction details for inspiration. The chest of drawers and, more specifically, the oversized knobs on many of these pieces, were the inspirations behind my toolbox. The idea of the toolbox itself came from the many types of containers and storage solutions that can be found in the Shaker archives.
I decided to make the Doverail out of wood to stay closer to the aesthetics and production processes used by the Shakers. Wood is a living material that changes with humidity and temperature, so it was difficult to achieve a smooth and constant operation for the rail. I experimented with many types of locking mechanisms and ended up using a tension screw; similar to those you can see on adjustable easels. This allowed for looser tolerances and a more consistent product.
Gabriel Tan
The Shakers designed chairs in a way that was relevant to their way of life. Not only are our homes getting smaller today, restaurants, bars and cafes are too. “What is the smallest functional chair, that could still be comfortable to sit on?” was my question. I designed a three-legged chair with a short backrest and a seat shape inspired by the shaker stove, that can be hung on a wall mounted peg rail.
Darin Montgomery
My daybed was inspired by three objects: a bed, a wood burning stove and a dustpan. We mounted wheels to the back legs so the daybed can be pulled away from the wall for cleaning. The straps holding the cushion down reference the rope support for their mattresses. The ropes were threaded through the bed frame and tightened—that’s where the term “sleep tight” comes from. The cantilevered side table was inspired by the ashtray on the Shakers’ wood burning stoves. It has an almost cartoonish quality about it. Lastly, the leg support detail was taken from the metal dustpans they made.
Simplifying construction was the greatest challenge. The first iterations of the daybed in particular seem ridiculous in hindsight. We’re working on the next tweak that will simplify it even more. I get hung up on the idea that a simple object actually has to be complicated to make. The Shakers took the opposite approach. Their pieces clearly required a high level of skill, but the solutions they arrived at were sincere and absent of arrogance. I kept reminding myself of this throughout the design process.
Chris Specce
For me, the way the Shakers had fully integrated their spiritual life with their physical culture was most inspiring. The Shakers were concerned with form as an expression of their beliefs—in the design of the objects they used and in the way they organized their spaces, but also in the way they ritualized the activities of daily life. I’ve tried to imagine how a similar type of elevation of the mundane could be possible now, even though life is so different.
Because the Shakers had such a spiritual investment in their work, it was intimidating to try to make something that had a meaningful engagement with their culture. From there, the big technical challenges were primarily about shaping wood. All of my work was produced with CNC machinery—I was really invested in figuring out the best machining strategies. The rake was particularly challenging in this respect, especially in the tines. At first I was attempting to do all of the forming prior to bending them into their curved shape by steam bending. The logic here was that they would be much easier to form with a 3-axis CNC machine if they were flat. But steam bending proved to be too inconsistent and the failure rate of parts was too high for how much effort went into getting them shaped as flat parts. In the end, they are first molded as a lamination and then cut on a CNC router with a special fixture to hold them. This requires quite a bit of post-processing: some rough shaping and a lot of sanding.
The Shakers were a progressive society and they were often early adopters of technology, so I didn’t want my projects to be anachronistic or reject technology. The projects have a similar approach because they are all modeled on something mundane and “low,” but nonetheless useful and convenient: plastic garden rakes, windshield ice scrapers, folding step ladders. My goal is for the things I’ve designed to conjure these familiar things but present a more graceful form and elevated materiality and production standard to yield something that is (maybe) somewhat ridiculous but also an interesting and compelling object.
Zoë Mowat
I was drawn to the large collection of brushes and brooms found in the Shaker archives. The Shakers invented the flat broom as it’s known today and they made and sold brushes in a variety of forms for many different uses—for cleaning hats and work benches, or for shaving or dusting the fireplace. Consistent with all their objects, their brushes are all handmade, beautiful and completely functional.
My aim was to explore the Shaker focus on utility, organization, and cleanliness. The designs were directly inspired by brushes from the archives: a hat brush, a smaller curved bench brush, and traditional dusting brushes. The simple forms came out of the desire to unify the series and emphasize the handles, which are all painted with colors from the traditional Shaker palette. I was surprised—as I think many people are—when I saw their use of color. The Shakers painted their furniture, objects, and buildings in a variety of vibrant colors, and certain colors were often chosen for specific objects or spaces—ochre in the bedrooms and dark blue for religious or meeting spaces, for example.
Ladies & Gentleman Studio
The Shakers’ believed strongly that work is a form of worship, so when asked to reinterpret their values in the modern context we took a closer look at how we work today. The desk was the logical place to start and we took inspiration by the variety of desks and worktables at the shaker village. Many of these were highly specialized stations for tasks like sewing, writing, woodworking, etc. They were designed to take up no more room than necessary and in many cases closed or compacted when not in use. Our favorite such piece was a tall chest of drawer whose middle drawer pulled out and unexpectedly folded downward revealing a complete desk with a writing surface and storage compartments.
We wanted our work station to be similarly unassuming, compact, and useful so we created a movable secretary desk whose lid can be folded down to reveal a seated work area complete with cable management and storage for supplies. Additionally, the desk’s top surface can be used as a standing height work surface furthering the functionality and versatility of the piece.
We were also fascinated by the materiality and graphic presence of woven Shaker chair seats. Our stools isolated the woven seat as the main element to create a simple, colorful pair of stools that celebrated the pattern and colors of the technique in a new way. The stool’s solid wood structure functions like a canvas frame that highlights the basic beauty of the weaving technique.
Jonah Takagi
My designs for Furnishing Utopia were inspired by thrift, honesty and the formal language of circles intersecting squares. The visual lightness as well as the economy of material and structure within Shaker objects will continue to inform my work.
It’s hard to imagine improving Shaker objects, besides tailoring them to life in 2016. For me, it was about looking for small, inconsequential moments that could be amplified. A table leg transitioning from a square profile to a circle or an elegant way to make use of the odd candles in the bottom of a drawer.
You can view all of these pieces in person beginning Friday, May 13th-Monday, May 16th at Sight Unseen OFFSITE as part of New York Design Week.
http://www.core77.com/posts/52909/The-Stories-Behind-Furnishing-Utopias-Shaker-Inspired-Objects