Joseph Nemeth, Silhouette Desk (WORLD 2021)

Country

United States

Clean lines, simple geometries, and complementary materials were the guiding design principles for this piece. I started with the overall form, seeking shapes that resulted in minimal profiles. The construction is described below. The legs, inspired by shiplap techniques used in boat construction, are adorned on the outside with mortised copper bar in hopes of accentuating the facet tapers while also adding a bit of detail and material continuity. The inner leg faces are laminated with 22ga copper sheet that had been annealed and rolled to the core curvature. Ideally, they reflect light into one another and lighten up the underside in addition to showing off their reddish hues. The ply-laminated leg cores were shaped by hand, using shoulder and bench planes, to create the tapered facets that would later be veneered with generous 3/32”(2.4mm) shop-sawn macassar ebony. The legs measure 24”(610mm) wide at the base with 5”(127mm) of center deflection and taper up to 18”(457mm) wide with 2”(51mm) of center deflection to meet the table underside at a height of 29”(736mm). The shape provides amazing rigidity and strength to this piece. They are tied into the table using custom steel brackets and matching magnetic tab covers hide the joinery. The leg feet are made from painted mahogany to match the profile of the shiplap patterns. The top boasts more 3/32”(2.4mm) shop-sawn macassar ebony shot/jointed by hand. The 40 leaflets were placed according to their most appealing orientations with care to book match sap wood but not create harsh “matchy” geometries. I wanted a very organic layup with an ever-so-slight semblance of order. I call it randomly deliberate. The points meet seamlessly at the center highlighting the painstaking effort to shoot each leaflet to a crisp, perfect singular point. The veneers are framed by solid mahogany hand-beveled edging. I rotated the top on its edge and shaped it using a combination of drawknife, handplane, rasp, and scraper. The final decorative element was the addition of copper bar to separate the painted edging and macassar. Thank you for your consideration. I hope you enjoy the images. Dimensions 76”l x 36”w x 30.5”h 1930mm l x 914mm h x 775mm h

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