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production: dining table
March 14, 2012
A majority of our projects emerge from piles of scrap or reclaimed/free material which is turned into something fresh and new. When I moved into my new shop, there was an abundance of unused scrap cherry on the racks. And a couple years ago, I picked up some old American black walnut flooring off of Craigslist. During a couple of long days of milling, we ripped off the tongue and groove of the flooring, resawed off the backs, and planed the boards into 1/2″ planks. These became the strips for an epic new dining table, built up like a butcher block, which allowed us to create an artistic arrangement of pieces – cherry and walnut in composed randomness. I can’t wait to throw some tung oil on this thing! Here are some process shots:
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and we’re back!
March 01, 2012
After a prolonged hiatus from updating anything on this website, we have revamped the look of autumn-workshop.com, begun new projects, gotten some of our stock listed on our shop, and are gearing up for a productive year! With that being said, I’m about to post a teaser of a new dining table under construction. Stay tuned for lots of updates.
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Topo Bench
October 15, 2011
A couple months ago we decided to do something with my growing collection of ipe wood scraps. Strips, chunks, board ends emerged to form an landscape across the bench surface. The seat surface begins as low lying flatlands which rise up into vegetated mountain peaks.
Since the bench is made from outdoor-safe materials such as ipe, this piece could placed outdoors as easily as in your living room or lounge.
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production: topo bench
October 05, 2011
One thing that comes from doing a lot of outdoor carpentry in NYC is a ipe scraps. Ipe is a south american hardwood which is exceptionally dense and stable, making it ideal for dealing with NYC’s harsh winters and hot summers. That is why many public projects, like the Coney Island boardwalk use it. Unfortunately, it is a horribly unsustainable wood to be using, as it is harvested from forests in South America. The one saving grace is I have been saving all of the scraps and cutoffs from these outdoor projects and now we have folded them into a new furniture piece, the ipe Topo Bench. Check out these process shots:
We are assembling the scraps into a topography that will serve as a seating area for two, which grows into some sculptural planters. Stay tuned for finish shots!
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re-built tree sculpture
April 07, 2011
After christmas 2010, my friend Ryan and I went on a little journey through Red Hook, picking and cutting up christmas tree stalks that people had thrown out. It seemed like such a waste… perfectly good building material that just needed some love and imagination. We also had an upcoming public art RFP on our minds and set out to build a concept sculpture. The idea was, take up scrap materials or smaller portions of cut up trees that were being removed from the site of the public sculpture, and then rebuild some of the trees that were being cut down.
For our concept model we used some reclaimed birch logs from a NYC garden, the christmas tree stalks, and scraps of steel hastily welded together to create some heafty brackets. The result was a pretty wild 8 foot tall post-apocalyptic chimera tree.
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production: scientific glassware vases
March 25, 2011
For the AW at Saffron show, we turned a lot of steel cutoffs into new houseware pieces for displaying floral stems. Here is how it happened!
Take angled cuttoffs from a steel bench I made, weld on scraps to back.
Grind down sloppy welds, and drill for test tube and mounting screws. ( I know – ragged gloves on a drill press is a safety hazard! Don’t do that. )
Clean up a bit more with the angle grinder.
Treat steel with a black oxide solution – a mild acid that causes the steel to oxidize. Voila.
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AW at Saffron: pendant terrarium lamps
March 20, 2011
As a part of the installation at Saffron, for AW’s launch party, we created 5 simple terrarium pendant lamps. The goal was to create a simple lamp from off the shelf components that could create a habitat and light source for the home. Image 5 of these above your dining table!
The lamps have plenty of holes for air flow in the top, along with a simply 5 watt bulb. Just enough for some atmospheric lighting, but not to hot that it will roast your moss.
The lamps were just ‘watered’ so there is a bit of condensation. But this goes away after a bit.
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AW at Saffron: scientific glassware vases
As part of the ongoing show at Saffron, we created 30 test tube vases, 3 flask vases, and a series of logs with test tubes imbedded in them to showcase the wonderful and exotic stems available at Saffron. The steel pieces are made entirely of cutoffs from previous projects, and the logs were just lying around the shop, leftovers from the birch lamp production. Gotta use those scraps! Upcycle.
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Terrarium Floor Lamp
March 18, 2011
The terrarium floor lamp emerged from experimentation with two things: touch dimming lamps and terrarium lamps. The goal was to merge the two in a unique way that would provide a larger upright lamp with the pleasant functionality of adjusting the brightness with a touch of the finger. You need only tap the steel bar to select one of four brightness levels, which is an elegant and ergonomic solution to the floor lamp switch.
The terrarium floor lamp was prototyped and handmade from walnut and maple. Autumn Workshop created a limited run of three of these lamps.
