#buildatable

Tea is not only an important part of western culture, but it also has its significance in Asian culture. In Taiwanese culture for example which developed overtime from Chinese tea culture. Taiwanese tea culture especially has a long tradition and meaning especially when it comes to family, as a symbol of togetherness.

The tea table has become a symbol of the tea-drinking tradition in Taiwan, where every time relatives or friends visit one’s home, everyone gathers around the tea table to enjoy tea while spending time together talking and enjoying each other’s company. Nowadays, the younger generation especially are less familiar with this tea-drinking tradition, as people’s lifestyles have changed, and older traditions forgotten or less valued and prioritized. Many households, thus, no longer have this tea table. The aim of this project is to create a tea table with more modern styles and forms for a younger target audience, while reintroducing them to the symbolic and meaningful act of drinking tea and idea of bringing people together. I want to make a tea table that young people will willing to buy and make traditional tea culture back in their lifestyle with a new form. 

I feel like it is really interesting to try something that’s not “graphic”, and get to know how materials and 3D designs work. Even though the final may not look proffestional enough but I had so much fun making it, and get to explore more stuff outside of the graphic world. 

After I sand the table and brought it home ( It is really heavy). I started to wonder how can I present this tea table in a nicer way, because it look still kind of crafty, if I just did a proper studio photoshoot will be boring and plain.

I look up instagram for researching how people styled tea table in their feed, after that I have more ideas of how to make the tea table more interesting.

I set up the shooting set near my window with the fabric that matched the table as a background,  and I used the tea set that I brought to come here with me to make proper tea.  After that I use the decoration I had at home and with the plants we also already had. I really enjoyed the process of setting up set, and cause everything has to be at the right place to make the photo look good and the theme clear. I like to do photoshoot with natural lighting because it is just make the object had a soft outcome.

I went to her studio near Stockwell station. She wasn’t sure that what kind of material I want to use, after discussing consider the limit of time for the material so we decided to use plaster because it dries out really fast and should do what I imagine, but the disadvantaged part is that it will be really heavy. So she suggests me not to make the size I originally design when the surface is too wide and heavy, the plaster will break easily. And it would be difficult and have to take a lot effort to make the mould like the shape I draw. So we decided to work with the stuff we had.

She has a huge bucket which is the stuff that we need. First, we place the bits of coloured plaster at the bottom of the bucket, and we stir the plaster powder with water for a while until its fully mix and start getting heated. We quickly pour it into the orange bucket, but I forgot to cut the wood stick for the legs and the plaster started to dry out. Yinyi grabs a saw and cut the wood immediately and we poke them into the plaster.  

We went off to lunch and come back to demould the table out of the bucket.  And I realized that we should put more coloured bits in it because most of it got covered by the white plaster. But I still like the outcome, the plaster has a soft looking surface and it is nice to touch.

Demould video.

And I started to sand it with different types of sandpaper and tools, it is quite a healing process and the more I sand it the more coloured bits show up.

After Joe’s Briefing of “Design thinking”, it really inspired me a lot to question myself to redefine what design is. Also, I understand that research is the most important part of the design because it is necessary to really deeply understand the content to get the right and smart perspective to have the idea.

I got “Build a table” for the brief, and I was a bit confused in the begining.

I roughly had 2 initial ideas, due to the lack of the time I had while we had D&AD project going on.  The first one is a modern tea table and the second one is a virtual table. Before I talked to my friend who is doing fine art, and she is really knowledgable of how 3D objects are made, I thought I will definitely go for the virtual table because I don’t have any experience of actually making stuff with mould or that kind of thing.  But after talking to her, she gave me a lot of imagination of how I could actually make the table happen. So I asked her if I can use her studio to make my table, and she agreed. And I started to develop my idea further and did more research on tea table.  

I remembered when I grow up, I could see this kind of tea table in almost every traditional family. DIfferent family will has their own special kind of tea table and different way of storing their tea set. It is a culture and daily thing for Taiwanese people. But after I grew up, I don’t see this kind of tea table in younger people’s home. Due to many reasons, mainly because young people prefer to drink bubble tea or coffee. They don’t really make their own tea at home. 

So I think to design a modern tea table that is smaller to fit in modern apartment will be a interesting idea. My initial idea of the table is using those organic wood shape and make it with plaster or lighter material. I found the shape of tea table really interesting because they base on the originial shape of it to process it. 

I sketched a few shapes that I think is more doable to make a mould and roughly calculated the hight and everything. When I sketched the design, I also found some inspiration on Pinterest and that is how I imagine the material would be.  I show it to my friend- Yinyi, she said it is doable but is really difficult without professional polisher, but we decided to test it in the studio first.

Sophie Smallhorn’s work explores the relationships between colour, volume and proportion through various mediums that include sculpture, print and large scale site-specific installations. Known for the strong use of colour within her work.

Sophie's work explores the relationships between colour, volume and proportion across prints, sculpture and site specific installations. Sophie’s kaleidoscopic odyssey began at the University of Brighton, where she studied Furniture and Ceramics. While making furniture she became interested in the colourful off-cuts, experimented with wall-mounted sculpture and the rest, as they say, is history. Exhibited and published internationally, her work has also featured in several Royal Academy Summer Shows.

Peter Tarka：Colourful, playfull and intricate – Peter’s visually striking cgi typography is simply fun, and definitely trendy. His works have graced the pages of many publications worldwide and he continues to work on commercial assignments for clients ranging from car manufacturers to financial institutions. Seems no one can get enough of taking letters, words, and slogans into the 3rd dimension. He also creat a series of virtual room for airbnb which make a strong sense of playing space in the virtual reality dimesion.