Coffee Table
I was charged with the task of designing and building a table with twelve parts or less (16 if it had a drawer [drawers are typically 5 pieces]) and no more than six percent over-structuring. I decided to push to use as few parts as possible. Since eliminating legs is the fastest way to eliminate the most parts, I asked myself how few legs a table could have. After much sketching and iterating, I designed and built a table with 3 parts ( and only one leg that costs only $37 in materials and takes one person just eight hours to build. This project sparked my passion for affordable high-design.
I began by designing a table out of one piece of plywood with bent ends for legs. That approach was oversimplified as it lacked hierarchy and play between materials. So, I began searching for a sensible way to develop those qualities and found myself contemplating how to maximize the bending.
In imagining how better to maximize bending plywood, I remembered some wine bottle holders I saw in my travels around Italy. By putting the neck of the wine bottle through a hole near one end of the bent olive wood, it is cantilevered and balances out the forces. I replaced the wine bottle with a table top but that left two issues: the table could not slide over the leg to get into a level position and any change in load on the table would cause it to become unbalanced and rotate off of level.
Straightening the leg allowed the top to simply slide onto it and adding a weighted base kept the table from having moment problems due to variant loads. (Note: Initially, the top was bent to create a storage shelf for remotes, magazines, or anything else)
Table Top
Leg
Base
The final table uses no mechanical connections (nails, screws, or otherwise) which allows the table to be easily assembled and disassembled. Also, since the three parts are essentially flat, the table is easily stored, packed, and moved. All with a mere half sheet of plywood and 12" x 24" x 3/4" piece of mahogany.
