Curves
You may have guessed by now that I have a craving for curves, rounds, anything but dead straight square edges.
Whilst I’m happy to make square items and of course will make whatever people request, my passion lies in sculptured forms and flowing shapes.
Children’s Play Equipment
One area in which even the most straight edge loving client can be bent to my point of view is commisions for children.
‘Oh think of their little heads!’ I cry. ‘We could round all of that, in fact I could just build it curved,’ ‘mmm yes good idea’ they confer.
I love building children’s play equipment, it’s a great medium to experiment with form and imagination. It is fun to build and excitedly road tested by my own kids.
The Egg Cafe
So “The Egg Cafe” project sounded perfect from the outset. An egg shaped sandpit for a café that would be perfect for children and families in the daytime but would transform into a cool, sophisticated hangout for young people in the evenings.
Birch ply is an excellent material for curved shapes. I use 15mm and 18mm to build the structural fins. This is wrapped in 2 layers of 4mm birch for a streamlined finish.
The design called for a very strong centre support to hold up the 4 large lids so that they could take being leaped about on by teenagers. I created a scaled down egg on ash posts.
I used 4inch high-density foam, 6mm wadding and leatherette to upholster the lids to make a night time central feature. The lids then hang from the walls during the daytime. Adding to the egg theming of ‘The Egg Cafe’.
This project also needed to be fire resistant which is not a problem unless you have time constraints, which we did, only 10 days lead time till the grand opening! So instead of using pre-treated timber I trialed an intumescent lacquer which went on easier than expected and has done the job with time to spare.