Over Christmas 2012, my family and another family of architects from Adelaide were lucky enough to stay in an early Richard Leplastrier farmhouse nestled in the Yarramalong Valley, ninety minutes north of Sydney.
I have been working with plywood over many years, and from time to time I prototype furniture. As a holiday project and Christmas present for my almost two-year-old daughter Elise, I designed this table and chair, which is part of a series of pieces for our apartment. The two of us put it together at the farmhouse, on a little deck between the bathroom pavilion (left) and the living pavilion and, being a proud dad, I made a video of it.
The chair is a gentle homage to SANAA’s armless “rabbit” chair and, made from CNC-cut formply, was designed to slot together. When Elsie outgrows the table, it will become our coffee table. I chose formply because it requires the least amount of post-production, and I am notoriously good at losing patience with these types of jobs, as the finish line approaches.
CNC milling delivers factory precision, but also the fun problem of making friends with the radius of the cutting tool. Unlike laser cutting you can’t get a squared internal corner with CNC milling, but you also don’t get any burning of the cut edge and face, or that bending “meniscus” as the laser beam bends across the cut edge. Best of all, I am told that making a piece of furniture for your family earns you 10 man points!
Eoghan Lewis is a director of Supple Design and founder of Sydney Architecture Walks.
