One of my favorite pieces of furniture was supposed to be a ‘stool’ for an architecture course. Initially, I wanted to take several layers of solid triangles and spiral them upward like a staircase. However, I ran into budget restrictions. Modifying my design in Sketch Up, I cut out triangles from the interior to create revolving frames (as seen in the first image below). While I was editing I accidentally added an extra groove (second image).

A lightbulb went off and I transposed this ‘mistake’ to all of the other layers as well. By creating this groove, the interior of the table became an open and smooth spiral shape (photos in row 2).

Previously, the spiral was covered by the additional material. To check angles and help prepare a jig, I created a quick mock up using foam core then went to work.

We had a little less than a week to build our final design. I was initially told my design was far too complex and there was no way I could finish it in time. After our first meeting, the shop instructors changed their minds and actually encouraged me to continue further and even incorporate various stain colors to instill a twisting motion. Overall, my goal was to take a simple shape and make it look overly complex.