The more time I spend away from the urban grid, the more I fall under the spell of non-rectilinear geometries. Straight lines and right angles are on the wane in my imagination, replaced by radial, spiral and stellate forms wherever I roam. I have a new appreciation for domes and geodesic thinking, and increasingly want to reflect this way of experiencing nature in the things I make. I’m beginning to experiment with a structure that features a stellate geometry, using traditional materials and techniques associated with chair bodgering. Whenever I design a structure I begin by meditating on the system of joinery (both metaphorically and practically), and how to optimize the interplay of strength, economy and durability. I’d like to reduce this structure (a chair, hopefully) to just one repeated structural component, and comissioned the blacksmith Jason Takuchi-Krist to fabricate a batch of sixty degree angle irons (below) with which I can test some ideas.
