Michael Gilling, Hamilton Rd Stool (WORLD 2024)

Photos:

Michael Gilling

Country:

New Zealand

These stools were made for an architecturally designed brass and kauri kitchen. They were to be a feature piece around the end of a sleek brass island. Wanting to create something that stood out on its own but also fit right in among the rest of the joinery elements. A simple stool form was created with the round top and rolled brass foot rail. From there extra details were added to balance the design and tie it in with the rest of the kitchen. The most striking detail is the scalloped seat with a solid brass bar inlay, in which the routed scallops cut through both materials seamlessly. There is a nice great contrast of geometric and organic here, which gives the stool its own presence in the space.

All the elements were made in house except for the foot rail which was outsourced. This is a solid 25mm brass rod that was rolled, welded and tapped to screw the legs to. The feet I made out of solid 38mm brass rod, Which I tapered using my wood lathe and woodwork tools. I bored a  hole in each end to epoxy the tenon of the kauri legs into. The fluted legs were created with a sliding router jig and rotating the leg by a set degree after each pass. The top scallops were cut by the use of a swinging router jig with a tray router bit, this was very much free style creating the organic wavy feel of the top. 
 
The timber is recycled NZ Kauri which was from the ceiling beams of a local freezing works, finished in Osmo Poly-X.

Images have been resized for web display, which may cause some loss of image quality. Note: Original high-resolution images are used for judging.