we make furniture. one piece at a time, it’s true. but, we also sometime make spaces, often intimate and personal spaces that can have a deep meaning both for us as makers, and for the clients we work with. i visited the space in the first photo above last saturday and again today, to discuss some new work in an upstairs office, and was struck by the peacefulness of it all. the client was the designer and she has an impeccable eye. we applaud her taste in custom furniture also. the two pieces we made in the photo, the large kas tv cabinet in the background, (back when big tvs were still big), and the custom pool table in the foreground, both look great over 10 years after we carried them in. both were challenges on a lot of levels, but looking at them now i remember the challenges as both fun and considerable, pushing me and my assistants to new levels to get things ‘just right’ for the space. so, we should design a piece of furniture not just as a piece of furniture, but hopefully also as a part of the the larger environment where it will end up. christopher alexander, in his influential (to me) book, ‘a pattern language’ says simply:

“At the core… is the idea that people should design for themselves their own houses, streets and communities. This idea… comes simply from the observation that most of the wonderful places of the world were not made by architects but by the people”.

-Christopher Alexander, A Pattern Language, front bookflap

 

for additonal photos in this series and larger versions of these photos as well as some thoughts on furniture/interior design visit this post on our dorset custom furniture blog