Collaboration piece: Joy Lu and Yvonne Shi
The Designing Process
It started with both of us blurting out ideas, the crazier the better, since good designs were often results of seemingly random conversations and rapid exchanges of intellectual sparks.
The colour contrast and variety, our realistic level of execution, availability of machines, accessibility of material, practicality, aesthetics, dimensions, ease for assembly and disassembly, even flexibility, were all among the things that we have pondered over.
We then proceeded to look for inspirations both online and in real life, trying our best to recollect the elegant and practical tables that we were fortunate enough to have used.
I organised all the inspirational pictures and information into a single folder, while Yvonne sketched out and made notes on the dozens of ideas that we have come up with. We then combined what is realistic and feasible with what we had a fancy for, and the amalgamation was a two and a half feet tall side table with 2 drawers and an open bottom shelf.
We designed a decorative table top with an elaborative frame, and the profile of the frame was carried over to the drawer front, in order to maintain the design echo. Also, we made sure that there is a balance of material, for instance, walnut, a relatively more expensive wood, was used sparingly for decorative purposes. Even though we limited the amount of walnut used, we tried to maintain the consistency of its appearance, thus it would be used from top to bottom, throughout the whole table.
Uniquely designed and made table top, with a diamond shaped walnut piece set in the middle
Showcase: Hand-cut half blind dovetail joints for the drawers
Both drawers can be taken out entirely
As can the bottom rack
Studies and experiments of dovetail joints
CAD study of the side table
