Paper Draft

Senior Project: My Home
Travis Bookler ~ March 9, 2009 ~ Senior Project

I’ve titled my senior project My Home for the intentions of where the objects will be, as well as the implications belonging to someplace that I, and others, may call “home”. It’s been a thought of mine for a while now to produce a series that somehow sums up my favorite projects, materials, processes, aesthetics, and so on for the time I’ve spent here at MCAD, and build upon them with new research, methods, materials, process, and aesthetics. Sort of bringing the old with the new. It is my hope that through this practice, the body of work will provide a sense of wholeness as I move on away from the walls of this school and into new endeavors.

The process starts with one piece, a favorite of mine: a coffee table made of walnut. It resides in my living room, and from this piece I will design new pieces from existing ones and the spaces they occupy. This coffee table was the first piece I made at MCAD I truly felt proud of. I was starting to imply design, inspiration, and an aesthetic that characterized my work. I was using the beautiful and natural qualities of wood to fit a framework for functional design inspired by gothic architecture and aspects of motion and tension. It would be a cornerstone in my repertoire and a piece I would always look to for future inspiration. Now more that ever I feel it is time to give ode to this piece by involving it as the source of “new from old” in my senior project show by re-designing and rebuilding it. Since it resides in my home, I want to design two more pieces that will be rooted in the same aesthetic vein as the coffee table to match and complete the room they are in. A fourth piece will be a stained glass window drawing inspiration from this aspect of church architecture, and applying directly to my home.

The first phase will involve research into how I believe I developed my aesthetic surrounding the coffee table, and how it seems to have lead me to where I am today. There wasn’t a definite source of inspiration originally, but I see the table a source for where I aesthetically am today, and felt I could relate that to it new conception. New and relating inspiration has definitely come from studying in Scandinavia, and more specifically from the work of names like Paol Kjaerholm., Finn Juhl, and a non-Scandinavian designer named Vladimir Kagan’s. I wanted to study them a little more in depth as I move on into realizing the new version of the coffee table, and moving on into new pieces. The next step was to digitally re-design the old coffee table so it can be made easier, faster, with improved craftsmanship, and able to be reproduced from the resulting jigs, templates, measurements, and techniques. Next was the conception of new pieces, which will be two end table and lamp combinations, made to fit into their existing space and match their existing purposes. The same aesthetic investigation and techniques of design and construction as the coffee table will be used for their bases, but new methods in wiring, lighting, plastic work, shade conception and construction will be used to complete them as new and independent pieces, yet match the aesthetic of the other pieces in the room.

The fourth piece will be a stained glass window, which draws back to work before MCAD. I’ve done small glass works at MCAD, but always wanted to expand into something larger and more meaningful. I want to further my studies into stained glass, and have come to be interested not only in classical design of cathedrals, but also in contemporary work. I’ve been greatly inspired by simple geometrics, yet complex and hypnotizing works in color. This can be seen in Claudio Naves work at the Dom Bosco Cathedral in Brazil, and Gerhard Richter’s work at the Cologne Cathedral in Germany. Richter was commissioned to design a new window that was originally blown out during World War II. The new Richter window consists of 11,500 hand-blown glass squares about 10 centimeters each, in 72 different colors; the design was inspired by Richter's 1974 presciently pixilated painting, 4,096 Colors, which has been overlaid onto window's original Gothic mullions and tracery (greg.org). In this same vein, I want to create a stained glass window that will fit and be functional as a normal window in my home. The spot I’ve chosen is a window in my bedroom that has a very close meaning to me. It’s a window I’ve spent much time near studying, thinking, sleeping, and most notably a spot for prayer where I lie in my bed. My take on this will be similar to Richter’s in his re-appropriation. He put a modern, abstract vision, into a classical Gothic framework, and the effect of that is amazing to me. In my vision, I want to take an item so typical in a place of worship, meditation, and prayer (a stained glass window) and be able to have that in my home. Though I am one who believes in going to church, I do feel that it is important to be able reach that state of mind in places elsewhere and in everyday life, especially in a place of comfort, like home. The window is no a necessity in my life, I feel it will remind me of the importance of having a sacred space to go to. I will be replacing the two interior windowpanes and installing them into the existing window frame in my room. I will display the two frames in a mock-window set up in the commencement exhibition, along with the other pieces.

To me, my home is a place of comfort, as well as a place I’ve grow up in, and a place I’ve evolved in, and continue to as life goes on. I’ve felt such things about MCAD and what I’ve created there. This body of work will represent that of which will literally be part of my home, a place of comfort, as well as the foundations and permutations of what has allowed me to create what goes in it.

Senior Project Proposal
Travis Bernerd Bookler ~ Furniture Design


My senior project adventure begins with the idea of congregating my favorite projects, aesthetics, and skills I have learned and made here at MCAD as a furniture designer and try create a series of pieces that show for it.

I also want to inject new research, methods, process, and aesthetics into these pieces.

I thought what better a place to work this idea out than in my own home. I am designing from my favorite things, why not let it be for the place I live.

The process starts with one piece, a favorite of mine. A coffee table made of walnut. It resides in my living room, and from this piece I will design new pieces from existing ones and the spaces they occupy.

The “new” stuff I mentioned earlier, and the first phase of this project, will involve digitally re-designing the old coffee table so it can be made easier, faster, with improved craftsmanship, and able to be reproduced from the resulting jigs, templates, measurements, and techniques.

The next two pieces will be rooted in the same aesthetic vein as the coffee table to match and complete the room, but are new pieces so they also have new and more abundant aesthetic, research and experience in their conception.

These new pieces will be two end table and lamp combinations made to fit into their existing space and match their existing purpose.

The same techniques of design and construction as the coffee table will be used for their bases, but new methods in wiring, lighting, and shade conception and construction will be used to complete them as new and independent pieces, yet match the aesthetic of the room.

The final piece I want to make will be a simple entertainment stand using the same methods of design and mostly the same methods of constructions, but a mostly new aesthetic and some new processes will give it its own identity while still tying it to the room.

More in the future on that……..