A Gift for Yew

Designed and built as a wedding anniversary present, the Gift for Yew was an exploration in the dynamics between hand craft, physical materiality and digital fabrication. The object evolved through an iterative, process-oriented design that relied upon material testing to failure by hand and machine-based precision manufacturing to pursue its aesthetic and functional ambitions. As a wine chiller, the design of the Gift for Yew had to meet certain real-world requirements; it must be sturdy, durable, water resistant and hold its ice bucket secure while allowing for regular removal of the vessel. Aesthetically, our interest was in exploring complex implicit form expressed through a multi-material structure. To resolve both agendas as both designer and maker, we selected a general palette of wood and steel, and proceeded to compose forms with steel as primary structure and wood as performative ornament. Moving from a digital model to a physical prototype and back again provided critical input on material behaviors not easily simulated in the computer. This process allowed for us to work through a combination of design variables including the material capacity for bending of the wood dowels, the weight of the steel rod, and the rotation of top ring with respect to the base and the resultant articulation of the entry angle of the rod. Mid-process, red oak and stainless steel were selected as the final materials for their balance of performance, cost and visual quality to achieve the practical elegance that the object’s design aspired to.

Client: Private Client
Size: Object
Status: Completed 2018

Material studies were conducted to empirically test bending limits of various species of wood dowels. The final material selection, design and fabrication was informed by these studies