Prototyping
These prototypes took shape through a collaborative and iterative process, shaped by many informal exchanges between a seasoned woodworker and a young architect.
Client
self-initiated
Year
2020
Apprenticeship
In 2020, Dihua Wei, an aspiring architect who trained at McGill university, apprenticed with the builder Mike Paterson at his woodworking shop in Upper Amherst Cove, Newfoundland. There, in collaboration with Mike, she began to experiment with furniture design based on direct experience with the local hardwood – yellow birch, and the immersive wilderness that characterizes this fishing island nestled in the North Atlantic Ocean.
The image of the Outport shoreline is defined by the presence of shores — stout posts set vertically or slanted in the ground to support a ‘fishing-stages’ or wharf above the ocean shore. Dihua sought to capture this sensibility through the reinterpretation of the archetypal milking stool.
Process-driven design
Their forms did not begin with conceptual sketches but unfolded slowly, through touch, trial and error, and discovery. More than just utilitarian objects, these two prototypes embody a new approach to design — one that celebrates the old, the familiar, and the essential.
Dihua Wei 