Finding the Artifact
My exploration began with a table I found at a charity shop, an elegant piece with Art Nouveau-inspired engraved legs. This table, while modest in function, carried layers of history and human interaction through its marks and additions—wax stain, stickers, interventions, and repairs. These traces provided the first clues to its life and potential for transformation.
To honor its origin, I took a well-crafted photograph of it in situ among an assemblage of other objects. This moment captured not only the table but also the rhythms of the space it once inhabited, resonating with the fragmented and layered nature of our domestic lives.
Material Encounter: Deconstruction and Discovery
The process of deconstruction revealed the table’s resistance and fragility. Each leg came off with varying degrees of ease, the glue stubbornly holding some pieces together while others gave way, breaking in defiance. This tactile engagement made the object's materiality evident—the wood, while rigid, carried its own narratives of stress, repair, and resilience.
Pictures taken in the workshop during different stages of the unmaking process
From Deconstruction to Recomposition
In the workshop, I began to explore the table's components, laying the pieces in new compositions to see how they could interact with one another. Through iterative experimentation, the artifact began to evolve, shaped by verbs derived from our readings: to provoke, to assemble, to play, to be fragile, and to be direct. These actions, paired with Richard Serra's Verb List, guided my making process.
Material Interaction: Fluidity and Rigidity
The final form was no longer a table but an abstraction of adaptability—a reflection on material and spatial dynamics, uniting the theoretical with the tangible.
The curved legs and dowels demonstrated how wood, typically perceived as rigid, could evoke fluidity and motion through thoughtful arrangement. The intersecting and twisting components created tension and movement, suggesting adaptability in form—a parallel to architecture's ability to respond to shifting human needs.
This interaction between static and dynamic elements symbolizes a broader principle: the balance between permanence and transformation in design. Just as the table evolved into an artifact of new meaning, so too can spaces evolve to meet the demands of sustainability and adaptability.
Final making of the artifact where the table is turned into a delicate shape that invites for play, assemblage, and balance.
Structural Metaphor: Holding Contradictions
The longer wooden piece, functioning as a unifying spine, held the curved legs in a delicate balance. It acted as both a literal and metaphorical connector, reconciling fragmented parts into a cohesive whole. This echoes adaptable design principles, where diverse elements—whether structural, spatial, or cultural—must coexist harmoniously.
The freely moving dowels introduced instability and fluidity, a layer of intentional flux. This instability emphasizes transformation, much like the evolving relationship between humans, objects, and spaces.
Spatial Dynamics: Beyond Function
By flipping the artifact upside-down and intertwining its components, I negated its original function, challenging traditional perceptions of utility. This tension invites viewers to reimagine the object’s purpose, much like how innovative architectural practices overturn conventional ideas to foster creativity.
The resulting interplay of elements created dynamic spatial relationships: the movement between curved legs, the tension in their intersections, and the shadows they cast. This mirrors the potential for spatial design to choreograph movement and interaction, blending form and function to serve human activity.
Reflections on Making
This process underscored the performative aspect of material engagement. Each step—removing stickers, breaking joints, twisting, and reassembling—was a chrogeraphy between the artifact and the maker. The workshop, a space of experimentation and rhythm, became a site for critical reflection on materiality, adaptability, and human-object relationships.
Toward Fratton: A Critical Lens
As I move forward, I aim to integrate these principles, designing spaces that, like the artifact, balance tension, play, and transformation. To balance the demolished and preserved, innate and learnt, foreign and native, and exaptive and adaptive.
All images are taken and edited by author between Nov and Dec 2024.
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