Chairs

How great chairs are designed and made — from mingei and Danish modern to the green-wood revival — taught half through appreciation and design thinking, half through real shop work, ending in plan-verified builds including two capstone chairs.

Who it's for. Anyone who wants to understand chairs deeply and learn to build them: the Japanese and Scandinavian design traditions, the joinery and techniques behind them, and hands-on projects from a simple stool to two capstone chairs.

1 course · 29 lessons

Path

1. Chairs

   The full arc in one course — how chairs work, the makers and movements worth knowing, design thinking and "chair math," joinery and technique, and a graded sequence of builds.

   How a Chair Works

   • The Two (and a Half) Families of Chairs
   • The Geometry of Sitting
   • Wood for Chairs
   • What Makes a Chair Good

   Makers & Movements

   • Mingei and Modern Japan
   • The Japanese-American Synthesis
   • Danish Modern
   • The Wider North
   • Continental Currents
   • American Studio Furniture (and Eames, Briefly)

   Design Thinking, Drawing & Chair Math

   • How Chair Designers Work
   • Reading and Making Plans
   • The Geometry of Chairs
   • The Physics of Chairs
   • Proportion and Form Language
   • Designing Your Own Variation

   Joinery & Techniques

   • The Mortise-and-Tenon Family
   • The Chairmaker's Joint
   • Japanese Joinery and Hand Tools
   • Bending Wood
   • Turning for Chairs
   • Woven Seats and Finishes

   The Builds

   • The Designer's Invitation (Mari's Sedia 1 or Rietveld's Crate Chair)
   • Stick Chair Warm-Up (*Build a Chair from Bulls%$t*)
   • Bent Lamination: The Butterfly Homage
   • Building an Icon (Choose Your Track)
   • Rustic Stretch
   • Capstone A: The Democratic Side Chair
   • Capstone B: The Post-and-Rung Ladderback