Azuma Design/Build Portfolio

Welcome!

2010-03-08T15:25:00.008-05:00

I'm Chris Hall and I make joined structures. My company is called Azuma Design/Build, azuma being a Japanese word meaning Eastern. I'm based in Western Massachusetts and serve clients all over the country. Thanks for your visit!

Just like the name says, I design and build - specifically, wooden structures connected with all-wood joinery methods. I do not use veneers, particle board, plastic, toxic finishes, or factory production techniques. I do not rely upon glue to hold things together - solid wood joinery has proven the test of time. Everything I do is one-off custom or of very limited run, and is built for the express needs of each client. My technical core is that of Japanese traditional carpentry practice, though of late I have made considerable study of French 19th century carpentry as well to expand my repertoire. Ming Dynasty Classical Chinese furniture is also a strong influence upon my work.

I build furniture, along with small and large buildings, and can create complete integrated interiors as well. I undertake residential, commercial, and museum work. References available upon request to interested clients.

Take a look at some of the pieces on this page, a sample of some of my work, and if any happen to catch your eye, please click on the relevant links to learn more about how each piece was made.

Ming-Inspired Dining Table.

A piece based on a Ming Dynasty side table, the original constructed circa 1586 and featured in The Journal of Chinese Classical Furniture. Features a unique frame and panel system with no metal fasteners or adhesives employed. Constructed of bubinga, an African hardwood and designed to last, like the original, for hundred of years.

This table is built to seat eight diners, and is about 8' (2.43m) in length and 40" in width. Hand rubbed oil/varnish finish.

Here's a view of the underside of the table:

A view from the narrow end of the table:

To learn more about the design and construction of this piece, please visit my other blog, where the build is detailed over 50 posts. Here's the first post: Ming Inspiration

Bell Tower (Shōrō).

A tower I spent a couple of months designing for a client in California. While it does not look like this project will go ahead, I derived great satisfaction from being able to manage the design phase for one of the most complex types of traditional Japanese temple structures. The roof is of the irimoya (hipped gable) type, with traditional minoko (gable verge rollover), all clad in copper shingles. The structure is designed for a 3000-lb. bell.

Side elevation view

The view of the underside of the roof showing the fanning rafters

front elevation view

A cut-away view revealing some of the interior structure

Step Tansu (Kaidan-dansu).

This piece, traditional in function and overall form, is made in solid 3/4" thick Bubinga, with fully dovetailed construction, frame and panel doors, and Japanese hardware. This storage cabinet, comprised of three interlocked units, was made to serve the client's particular needs and to fit the configuration of the wall and window behind it. The plinth below the cabinet is also custom fabricated and employs Japanese twisted dovetail corner connections, to provide a seamless integration of the piece with the existing room's Douglas Fir edgegrain baseboards.

To learn more about the kaidan-dansu, please click here. Available in a variety of materials and configurations to suit every situation. Small to large, mild to wild.

Reception Desk.

This large (6' x 9') desk was built for a busy doctor's office and is made of Honduran Mahogany with Eastern Maple tabletops and grillwork. Composed of some 288 pieces, all connected without use of any metal fasteners or glue. Assembly of the desk in situ took three days.

To view more photos showing the assembly of this desk, including details of its many type of Japanese joints, please click here.

Mahogany Chairs.

While chairs lend themselves well to factory production methods, due to the large number of templates and repetitive cuts required, people come in all sorts of different physical proportions, and my chairs are built with that in mind. This run of seven chairs, some with armrests, some without, are framed in Honduran Mahogany. The back splats are made of Pacific Yew, a very resilient wood often chosen for archery bows, and this wood allows the splats to flex and conform to the sitter's spine.

The chairs feature much exposed joinery, and the critical portions are designed to be extremely strong for the duration while not burdening the owner with an overly-heavy chair. To read more, please click here.

Shrine Lantern.

This form of free-standing garden lantern has long been a favorite of mine. I spent three months crafting this piece, which has some 185 pieces, all connected purely with joinery. Provision is made for electrical wiring, which is fully concealed inside the piece. Made of Honduran Mahogany, with Bloodwood and Lignum Vitae keys and pegs.

Notice that the post of the lantern is cut to fit against the boulder exactly. This boulder in turn would be attached to a concrete foundation upon installation. Many variations upon this theme are possible. to learn more, please click here.

Vanity.

This small cabinet is made primarily of Claro Walnut and Black Walnut, though the tabletop panel is East Indian Rosewood. Japanese joinery throughout, with Japanese hardware on the doors. The interior floor of the cabinet is in Yellow Cedar, which repels pests. As with all my pieces, hand-planed and hand-scraped.

To see some photos of the build process for this piece, please click here.

I construct solid wood joined structures of all sizes and shapes, from furniture to specialized complex roof work and stair fabrication. If you want a beautiful addition to your world, designed and built just for you, in real, solid wood and constructed with the highest care and attention (to details you may never see), pieces really intended to last for centuries, please contact me. That's what I do. No corners are cut, and no disappointed clients ever!

Museum Bench

2010-02-13T10:20:00.001-05:00

I was recently contracted by the Boston Children's Museum to do some repair work on the Kyo no Machi-ya, a 125 yr. old Kyōto Merchant's house installed within the museum itself. One of the repair item was a fold up bench, or battari shōgi, which is affixed to the front of the house by the entry. These benches are used by day to display wares by the merchant, and at night they are folded up. At the Children's Museum, the bench is used as a place for people to sit and remove their shoes before entering the house.

The building is open to the public for exploration and receives a lot of traffic, and thus the existing bench, made from Pine, was wearing badly. It was becoming loose in its mountings and a safety hazard. I recommended construction of a new bench with superior hard-wearing materials and detailing. Here's a few photos from that project. The material i chose to work with is Wenge, millettia laurentii, an African hardwood which is black, yet shows lovely grain figure. This wood is extremely dense and tough, and will never need staining or maintenance of it's surface from wear, save for the occasional re-oiling. Here are some of the frame crosspieces, where I have cut tusk tenons:

The tusk tenons fit into their corresponding mortises, which look like this:

The frame rails were connected, (in an improvement over the original which was screwed and plugged), using a twin tenon-stub tenon arrangement with a mitered tongue and groove return on the top:

Here is one of the mortises to receive a twin tenoned rail:

This piece of wood had a small defect which I patched, as you may observe in the above photo. Wenge is a precious material and I must use it judiciously. When the corner joint is drawn together, it looks like this from the top - later the slight projection of end grain will be trimmed flush with the adjacent face, as will the projecting tenons:

Here I am working on one of the hinge pins for the fold out leg assembly - these pins are made from Lignum Vitae, the hardest wood there is, and a wood that is a perfect choice for a hard-wearing part like a hinge pin:

Lignum vitae, in fact, is known to outlast bronze 3 to 1.

Once the hinge pins were complete, they looked like this - I've inserted the Lignum Vitae pins into a Wenge receiving block:

The pin then fits through the leg like this, and you can see that I have also lined the leg socket with Lignum Vitae inserts. It will last virtually forever:

The bench frame itself, also hinged, employed Lignum Vitae hinge pin inserts - here is how the leg and frame will come together:

As in all my work, I hand plane to finish:

Here's a close up of the hinge pin block for the swing out leg assembly after it has been fitted. i use a from of bridle joint for this connection:

I was able to re-use the original floating panels in the replacement bench, which have a lovely texture and patina from 30 years of hard use:

And here is the installed bench, in the folded-up position - note how well the oiled Wenge matches with the surrounding lacquered wood:

And a final photo of the bench in the down position, as it will be most of the time:

Thanks for having a look today! If my design and build services may be of interest to you, please contact me at:

azumadesignbuild@gmail.com

And please feel free to look at other pages on this site!

Shrine Lantern

2009-11-01T17:23:00.002-05:00

This project was long in the germination phase, my admiration for the form established many years back. The proto-typing work also involved a considerable time investment. After carefully studying some 85 examples of Japanese freestanding lanterns, I set about designing and then building this piece, which is composed of some 185 interlocking joined pieces:

The lantern has a stylized kiri-zuma roof, and is made of Honduran Mahogany, a wood of exceptional durability and stability in service.

A view from up on high:

And a look from below:

The lantern housing contains latticed glass panels and an electrical fixture for a bulb. All electrical wiring is completely concealed, and the bulb is easily accessed. This is a one of a kind piece, and is absolutely traditional in proportion and build. No corners were cut in the execution of the build, and 90% of the joinery was hand cut. All the pieces are hand-planed and scraped; no sandpaper went near this lantern. There is no finish but the natural planed wood. No metal fasteners or glue is employed in the piece, save for the attachment to the boulder at the base, a connection which employs a pair of threaded metal rods.

While I may not be the most photogenic specimen myself, I include this picture to give the reader a sense of the size of the lantern:

The prototype is available for sale, or a client might wish to commission a custom piece -well, every piece is custom - or two (these lanterns often occur in pairs). Numerous design variations are possible on the theme. Copper roof shingling may be specified as well, along with other roof forms. Price upon inquiry. Installation extra.

If the reader would like to look at a few other selected pieces please click on the following links:

Carol's Step Tansu
Doctor's office reception desk
Mahogany Chairs
Walnut Cabinet

There is also a page of designs, as yet un-built:

Designs

Thanks for visiting!

Carol's Step Tansu

2009-09-22T21:35:00.005-04:00

Japanese cabinets that take the form of stairs are termed kaidan dansu, or step-chests. Stairs that take the form of cabinets are termed hako kaidan, or box stairs. Here is an example of the former, a piece made in solid 3/4" thick Bubinga, for my client Carol. Please click on any image to enlarge.

Every piece starts out as a drawing, a part of an extensive consultation with the client to design the piece that meets their needs. Every piece is unique since every client is unique:

The entire cabinet, unlike most kaidan dansu, was put together using carcase dovetailing and carcase blind tenons, which makes for stout construction:

The steps in this cabinet become longer as one moves from the top to the bottom 'step', in a logarithmic progression:

The lovely quilt on the back wall is the client's work, created to go with the piece.

The hardware is patinated forged copper, custom made by Avigal David of Israel:

The edges of the cabinet are gently rounded, which allows for clean sword-tip miter interconnections between panels:

The drawer fronts are carved out of solid wood.

The doors are frame and panel, all solid Bubinga, and have beaded frames with re-entrant corners:. The large door has grill bars, or kumiko, done in an arrangement suggesting whirling:

Even such seemingly minor aspects to the design as cable ports are given detailed attention. I think this - a pentagon with emerging Chinese Chrysanthemum motif - beats a plastic grommet any day:

The joinery is fitted carefully, as a matter of course:

The kaidan dansu can be made with great diversity of configurations to suit virtually any storage requirement. This compartment, for example, is for the client's cookbooks:

Sliding doors have recessed ebony pulls, sourced from Japan:

The entire step cabinet is some 9' long, and composed of three demountable 'boxes', allowing for potential reconfiguration if the piece is later moved. It is therefore built with the long-term view in mind, and should last for generations. Here's the uppermost box, with three 'steps':

Superior to a built-in, I think, by customizing a plinth in the form of a baseboard, in edge-grain Douglas Fir, the integration with the existing room is seamless:

Cost of a custom-made kaidan-dansu depends of course upon choice of material, size, complexity, and elaboration of details. The range of price is $17,000~25,000, delivery time from deposit is on the order of 2~4 months. Curvilinear hako-kaidan, that is geometrical staircases with storage built in, are also possible.

If the reader would like to look at a few other selected pieces please click on the following links:

Shrine Lantern
Doctor's office reception desk
Mahogany Chairs
Walnut Cabinet
Museum Bench

There is also a page of designs, as yet un-built:

Designs

The main page on this site:

Welcome!

Thanks for visiting!

Designs

2009-09-21T09:35:00.007-04:00

On this page I will be putting up sketches of pieces that I have been designing, which are as yet un-built. These are meant to serve as inspiration or take-off points for clients, and are points of exploration for me. All designed pieces are the result of a collaborative process between the builder and the client.

Coffee Table

A project currently in the cutting stages:

Plan View

This table has a frame a legs of Bubinga, with a Wenge shelf panel:

As with many piece of furniture I design and make, this one employs only wooden joinery - no metal fasteners or glue:

Here's an alternate version with the woods reversed:

Heptagonal Table (7-角)

This is an development from a 5-sided table I built a few years back - here's a couple of pictures of that table so you can see the starting point:

The above table has Honduran Mahogany for stretchers and legs, with a laminated curvilinear interior pentagram in Pacific Yew.

The confluence of pieces met at the top of each leg, and I created a unique double-dovetailed and locking joint to bring the works together:

This heptagonal table design employs an interior heptagram along with a heptagonal reciprocal bracing system:

The glass top is 1/2" thick and allows for an easily maintained surface and a view of the woodwork below. Illustrated in Mahogany however other woods are of course possible.

Here's a bird's eye view:

And a view from the floor level:

French Joiner's Bench Adaptation.

I've poured hundreds of hours into the study of French 19th century carpentry techniques, and my focus of late has involved complex lay-out of diagonal bracing. One such project is a trépied établi, or three-legged joiner's bench. This bench, while of debatable practicality for actual joiner's work, serves as a vehicle for the study of various patterns of attaching x-bracing within any polygonal structure. I modified the 3-legged form into a 6-legged, or hexagonal configuration, and placed a 1/2" glass top on it. It would be an intriguing coffee table. This could be made in a fairly wide variety of materials- here I have chosen a red (Bubinga) and black (Wenge) theme:

The small white squares you can see in various places are painted end-grain portions, often tenons. The paint limits moisture transfer and prolongs the life of the joinery, as well as serving to add visual interest. There are many through tenons on the piece and assembly will be a challenge!

A bird's eye view:

And a view from the floor looking up:

Another look:

Here's a similar piece, on an octagonal theme, built as the 'masterpiece' in culmination of a 7-year carpentry apprenticeship in France, 1930's:

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If the reader would like to look at a few other selected pieces please click on any of the following links:

Shrine Lantern
Mahogany Chairs
Walnut Cabinet
Bubinga Step Tansu
Doctor's office reception desk
Museum Bench

To return to the main page, click here

Thanks for visiting! Contact me at:

azumadesignbuild@gmail.com

Reception Desk

2009-03-18T12:57:00.008-04:00

This is a large reception desk I constructed for a doctor's office, about 9' along one side and 6' along the other, in a 'J' shape. The desk is built entirely with joinery, not a screw, nail, bolt or even glue was used. The piece can be demounted if necessary.

After a long period of work in my shop, assembly of the desk could commence - here are all the mahogany parts stacked up and ready to be put together:

Assembly began with the sill:

As the sill went down, soon to follow were the front and rear posts:

Then the main desk rails:

The curved grill bars:

Then the 'flickering flame' boards were fitted:

The frame is capped by an upper table, also completely assembled with pure joinery:

Then the lower table top could be installed, along with the front cap rails. Here, the long side cap rail is being test-fitted:

The numerous cable ports for the edge grain hard Maple work surface were each lined with a Mahogany pentagon:

Here is how the desk looked after the frame assembly was complete:

Lastly, the shoji screens were fitted. While these following photos are a little dark, they show the completed installation:

A desk of this sort is a complex project, quite time-consuming to build and requires a lot of specialized knowledge to design. A desk similar in size, configuration and material to the one above would be priced in the range of $25,000~30,000.

If the reader would like to look at a few other selected pieces please click on the following links:

Shrine Lantern
Mahogany Chairs
Walnut Cabinet
Bubinga Step Tansu
Museum Bench

I also have a page of designs, as yet un-built:

designs

Return to site main page:

Welcome!

Thanks for visiting!

Mahogany Chairs

2009-03-17T11:31:00.005-04:00

I made a set of five chairs and a pentagonal table for a client a few years ago - these are the chairs. The frames are plantation-grown Honduran Mahogany, the back splats are unusual spalted Pacific Yew with a lovely 'flame' pattern, and the seats are of leather. Pegs are made from Wenge (millettia laurentii) a central African wood with 10 ton crushing strength.

One of the chairs had armrests, sized specifically for the client's body (as was the rest of the chair):

The other four chairs were identical except for the lack of armrests:

The spalted Yew for the chair back splats was a very lucky find. I chose Yew, a wood that is popular for making bows, as the back splat material since it is a highly resilient wood. The splats are fixed at the bottom and float at the top, so that when the sitter reclines, the splats flatten out slightly and conform to the sitter's lower back:

The crest rail is attached to the rear legs with a Japanese double-wedged locking joint, mitered on the exposed faces. This joint is extremely strong and reliable:

The side rails of the chair seat are cut in a form of the Chinese cloudlift pattern, complete with a beaded edge carved into the colid piece:

Where the side rails join the rear leg of the chair, I increased the height of the rail so that it could have two tenons, thus greatly increasing the strength of this connection, the most highly-stressed in a chair:

On the chair with the armrests, the joinery through-tenoned and wedged. In the above picture you can see the connection of the armrest to leg, and below is the connection of armrest to support piece:

Here's a view showing a chair in process, and a completed chair:

Chairs, as with any other piece I make, are expressly designed for each individual client, and in the case of chair this makes a huge difference. Whether you are tall or short, long legged or have short upper arms, etc, I can make a chair proportioned just right for your body.

Prices, for chairs in the same materials as pictured:

-w/o armrests $1750 ea.
-with armrest $2250 ea.

Other woods are available, and can be quoted. Please enquire directly.

Splayed-leg stools, with 3,4,5,6, or 7 legs are also a specialty of Azuma Design Build. Here's a pentagonal stool for example, in Alaskan Yellow Cedar with Pacific Yew top supports:

If the reader would like to look at a few other selected pieces please click on any of the following links:

Shrine Lantern
Walnut Cabinet
Bubinga Step Tansu
Doctor's office reception desk
Museum Bench

I also have a page where I am showcasing design work, projects that remain un-built but offer much possibility and, hopefully, inspiration:

designs

And, to return to the main page, click here.

Thanks for visiting!

Black Walnut Cabinet

2009-03-13T09:45:00.003-04:00

This small cabinet is intended for use in a dressing room, or as a vanity, though it might also suit a vestibule or hallway location. It is constructed from two kinds of Walnut, primarily, with a floor of Yellow Cedar, and a top panel of East Indian Rosewood. The Rosewood was a lucky find, obtained from stock located in San Francisco and imported more than 30 years ago.

In this post, I want to share a few details of how this cabinet was made, as I think this aspect of furniture making is something the buyer often never sees. It is the unseen details which can contribute most heavily to the quality of a piece, and its ultimate durability.

As always, I start the project with a drawing - this one went through more than half a dozen revisions before it was finalized. The challenge in this piece was to use a dark 'masculine' wood like Walnut and yet make a piece with 'feminine' lines, slender proportions, and yet high strength.

Here's one of the iterations in the drawing series:

The red square and swung arc show how the proportion of the cabinet was developed upon the basis of the Golden Ratio, or phi.

Proportions, not only of the overall cabinet, but of the components pieces that go into it, is carefully considered. From the drawing, templates are developed which then allow the individual parts of the cabinet to be made, many of which can be seen here:

The legs and frame rails of this cabinet are of Black Walnut, while the panels are Claro Walnut, a wood from California that is the result of grafting English walnut onto a Black Walnut stem. These are solid wood panels, not veneered, the panel grain orientation and cut chosen so as to both show the figure and to be stable in service.

The Claro Walnut panels had such lovely figure that I chose to continue them up into the upper section of the cabinet and combine them with latticework. I wanted a lattice pattern that would be interesting and yet simple, and I came up with a pattern based on an old Chinese design. The joinery for these lattice frames were a bit difficult to do given the frame's curved sides and base:

The top for the cabinet is supported by a square frame. Cutting the joints for that frame is done by hand:

These types of complex Japanese joints are not possible to simply cut by machines, and thus won't be found on factory-produced furniture, but they are the strongest and most long lasting form of construction for a mitered corner:

These joints do not merely glue together- there is no glue employed in fact. The joint locks together by the use of parallelogram-shaped wedging pins. Here's the 'male' end of the upper table top frame joint up close:

Here are the parts comprising the top, prior to assembly:

Now watch as this joint goes together, step by step:

2:

3:

The completed joint, after the pegs are trimmed, is 'light-tight' and uses no glue:

Let's look at the complete cabinet. The Indian Rosewood goes well with the Walnut I think, as they share a purple undertone:

The top is held to the supporting frame by concealed dovetail locking pins, and the top can be removed if needed. This approach means the piece can be repaired or even altered years down the line if required:

The Yellow Cedar was chosen for the floor, as it keeps the interior from being too dark, and the wood naturally repels insects:

The lattice bars are also of Black walnut despite their light color - I used Walnut sapwood:

This cabinet is currently available for purchase. Price: $7200.

If the reader would like to look at a few other selected pieces please click on the following links:

Doctor's office reception desk
Mahogany Chairs
Step Tansu
Shrine Lantern
Museum Bench

There is also a page of designs, as yet un-built:

Designs

And, back to the start:

Welcome page

Thanks for visiting!