My Studio Stool

I bought the instruction zine for The Studio Stool from Manual months ago and then cut up some 3/4” plywood sometime this summer and finally reorganized enough to finish it yesterday.

But I didn’t make mine exactly to pattern. I wanted to make mind a bit “my own” and so I simplified the dimensions and complicated the fastening to eliminate the offset.¹ To fasten without an offset, I found some 1/4” bamboo garden stakes and cut them into 2” dowel rods. I drilled holes and then glued the dowels in place to hold the whole assembly through and through.

I used 3/4” A/C birch plywood for mine because I love the endgrain it brings to a sandwich alignment like this. I finished mine with boiled linseed oil (as I do with most wood these days) to really bring out the whorls and grain.

I don’t have a table saw - only my jigsaw - so the cuts aren’t straight on this, but the seat feels perfectly firm and stable.

Future

I’ve long wanted to build my own Rietveld-esque crate stool / table (written up by Piper Haywood), so maybe that will be my next build. The whole idea of crate furniture obviously appeals to me: so functional and efficient and customizable to your own comfort.

More crate furniture (or “box furniture”) reading/watching:

• Reclaiming simplicity, thrift, and utility
• Tom Sachs speaking at IKEA: My Personal Journey with Chairs
• Donald Judd Furniture
  • I’d love to make a Double Back Bench 20
• Another I want to make many of: Berlin Hocker stool (stackable and composable into so many things!)
• Another I want to make: Steltman chair