Craftspeople have always improvised the making and modification of their tools to suit their needs using materials to hand. These mallets and brushes are made from found materials, offcuts and unprocessed sticks.
These objects are part of an investigation of the anachronistic aesthetics of using remains and minimally processed materials.
——————————
Materials: Beech, Oak, Sticks, Chair leg, Paracord, Offcut draft excluder
The Fireside chair is part of the Re-imagining Aydon exhibition of works by the Design Histories group created in response to the history, setting and atmosphere of Aydon Castle.
The castle, which sits in an idyllic rural setting in Northumberland, North East of England, dates back to the 13th Century and is now in the custody of English Heritage.
The chair will be on show at Aydon Castle until October 2022.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
The Fireside chair is part of the Spolia collection of furniture made from offcut and salvaged timber components.
This chair is assembled from material remains and informed by the elemental, almost crude, construction of the fireplaces at Aydon Castle.
————————————————————
The Stump stool is part of the Re-imagining Aydon exhibition of works by the Design Histories group created in response to the history, setting and atmosphere of Aydon Castle.
The castle, which sits in an idyllic rural setting in Northumberland, North East of England, dates back to the 13th Century and is now in the custody of English Heritage.
The stool will be on show at Aydon Castle until October 2022.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
The stool part of the Spolia collection of furniture made from offcut and salvaged timber components.
The stump stool references the unintended charm of improvised axe blocks, used throughout the world for hundreds of years. A work surface on which wood is chopped, split or carved, axe blocks must be durable and, above all, stable.
Materials: Ash tree stump and offcut blocks.
————————————————————
The Spolia stools are part of the Re-imagining Aydon exhibition of works by the Design Histories group created in response to the history, setting and atmosphere of Aydon Castle.
The castle, which sits in an idyllic rural setting in Northumberland, North East of England, dates back to the 13th Century and is now in the custody of English Heritage.
The stools will be on show at Aydon Castle until October 2022.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
The stools are part of the Spolia collection of furniture made from offcut and salvaged timber components.
The oak stool is part of the Re-imagining Aydon exhibition of works by the Design Histories group created in response to the history, setting and atmosphere of Aydon Castle.
The castle, which sits in an idyllic rural setting in Northumberland, North East of England, dates back to the 13th Century and is now in the custody of English Heritage.
The stools will be on show at Aydon Castle until October 2022.
The Stool is part of the Spolia collection of furniture made from offcut and salvaged timber components.
Workholding Devices designed and made with and for young people.
This is a project that draws on the rich history of workholding devices for woodworkers to inform new mobile workbenches that can decentralise the practice of woodwork and thereby increase participation in the activity.
This is an ongoing piece of work that explores the use of low work benches that are built around the use of body weight and holdfasts to immobilise a workpiece. By creating simple to make and relatively light weight devices that are easy to transport and store, the intention is to free the practice of woodwork from the grip of the immoveable heavy woodwork benches typically found in schools and colleges.
The project is a collaboration with a North-East based creative arts organisation Kids Kabin that runs regular pop-up community based making activities for young people.
Rulers: (created for the Tools for Everyday life “rulers” project)
There are potential narratives about scale, the decorative role of brass, agreed units of measure and what is lost by and gained from the processing of natural materials, that could be projected on to these almost useless objects. They are a series of 12 inch (304.8) mm sticks and one Yard (914.4mm) stick with cast brass 1:50 scale models finding somewhere to stand or sit.
The intentions of this project were three fold:
1: To functionally take cues from the multi-use carpeted 2nd step to the first floor of a home- a useful place to perch for phone calls, change shoes, sit when you have been naughty…
2: To explore the form of the traditional saw horse. The aim to employ both the stance and construction that these utilitarian objects have.
3: To work closely with an upholsterer in the exploration of intentions 1 & 2, paying particular attention to stitch and quilting details.
The stool is made from beech and the bench from oak and both upholstered in Argyll Fabric (85% wool, 15% Nylon) by Jasper Morrison for Bute.
More Domestic Animals/ a series of 6 stools
Materials: oak dowel, oak & birch firewood, steel tube, bar tape, milk paint.
By drawing attention to the relatively unprocessed nature of roughly split and chopped firewood the intention has been to create a collection of stools with individual character. This wild aesthetic has only been somewhat tamed by the application of a flat matt milk paint.
“… a fragment of nature in a project… emits an infinite power superior to the whole geometric system of modernity, while its uniqueness makes it almost sacred.” Andrea Branzi
The colour palette is inspired by finishes applied to machinery found in workshop environments.
The Northern Tool box is a magazine/ newspaper rack.
This product is the result of an investigation of utilitarian design language and the beauty of what might be called ‘low-tech’ or ‘traditional’ tools and their storage.
Avoiding a nostalgic retreat from new technology, the development of the product embraced digitally driven technology whilst making full use of traditional woodworking processes.
The newspaper rack references a Carpenters toolbox. Made from black dyed solid Ash, it is constructed with dovetail joints. The turned wooden handle has a laser etched ‘knurl’ to notionally add grip but also give a domestic object an engineered value.
It's called the Northern Tool box because it's first job was to act as a rack for The Northern Tool newspaper. (The Northern Tool is an intermittently published tabloid that documents the trials and tribulations of The Tools for Everyday Life project)
The prototype bench is made from Oak. The construction is simple: 2 end profiles with a top and dowel between them.
The angled seat is designed to give more comfort than a flat wooden board might. The end silhouette/ elevation of this bench is rather obviously derived from a simplified sketch of a pair of work pants (Arbeid ‘Bukser’ in Norwegian).
The intention has been to provide a product to sit on that is not subject to a change in trends or fashion.
The materials, colours and finishes of this bar stool reference the tools and equipment found in workshop environments.
The stool top and foot rest are round so it should be just as easy to turn your back on the bar bore as it is to give your full attention toward a friend. This stool is made from oak and steel. It is 780mm high and has a 320mm diameter seat.
The goal of the Tools for Everyday life project is to engage people as physically skilled operators of functional products rather than passive spectators of a designed experience. By imbuing everyday items with qualities of good tools and workshop equipment the intention is to design products that are a physical pleasure to use.
The project draws it’s designers from the community of practice that surrounds BA(hons) 3D Design and the post graduate Designers in Residence scheme at Northumbria University.
The Tools for Everyday Life project and the briefs it sets to the designers result in both commercially viable artefacts and opportunities for designers to articulate their positions on the creation of things in general and the relationship between craft knowledge and product design more specifically. Launching the artefacts at Trade fairs alongside established design brands, and presenting them for sale, places the products firmly in a commercial context.
The project is documented and reflected upon through its website and the irregularly published newspaper The Northern Tool.
Here’s a bit on Core77 about the project and a review at SightUnseen.
The art work for the promotional beermats and posters are by Neil Conley.
This round table is 650mm in diameter and 400mm high. The legs and rails are oak and the top has an oak lipped Formica® laminate. This prototype uses the Virrvarr White ™ laminate designed by the Swedish Prince Sigvard Bernadotte (Duke of Uppland) in 1958.
It’s round to encourage those in chairs to circle it. Solid oak provides structural strength and warmth whilst high pressure laminate is a canvas for a pattern and provides wipe clean utility.
Designed with ‘office break out’ areas in mind the ‘Round’ table is equally suited to domestic settings.
Tea Light Holders: Created for the Tools for Everyday Life initiative
There are stories about human relationships, loneliness and the joy of staring at a naked flame that could be attached to these objects. The facts are: 62mm diameter, 48mm high brass and oak tea light holders with brass people attached.
A bench and stool
The Rings can: hold plant pots and containers, be a place to hold an umbrella/walking stick or with the addition of a timber disk act as a place to sit. The bench is made from oak and powder coated steel, the stool from iroko and steel.
A lot of contemporary furniture and products are conceived as aesthetically isolated objects where as soon as the object is used the designer’s vision is compromised. The goal here is for these pieces of furniture to be brought further to life by both the everyday things they can support and by the lives of the people that use them.
This time a 1:50 scale sitting brass man finds himself soldered to an American made cast iron frying pan.
The man watching food being fried is a little sinister, but over time as the pan is seasoned through use, the brass man too picks up the finish and scars of what is happening around him.
There are any number of potential stories to be projected on to a product where a figure both watches a function take place and over time becomes more part of the product.
The pan is by Lodge Cast Iron. Lodge opened his first foundry in 1896 in the town of South Pittsburg, Tennessee. Via a commitment to quality and a willingness to embrace advances in technology, Lodge Cast Iron continue to make cookware products in South Pittsburgh.
The ‘Pan’ was produced in an edition of 2 and first shown at the International Contemporary Furniture Fair (ICFF) 2016 New York City.
The intention has been to keep the forms of these money boxes simple to draw attention to the slot where coins are dropped. The colour, shape and details reference products commonly found in a workshop environment. These containers are made from turned oak.
Two of them incorporate tin cans as receptacles for the money (coins make a rewarding sound as they find a home in the cans). I have always liked the shape of tin cans and appreciated how well they work. They are rather more handsome when they have been stripped of their labels and the ribbed flanks have been exposed.
Once full of cash the cans and boxes can be emptied via access through the discreetly removable bases or via the loosening of the jubilee clips that secure the cans.