Yesterday I attended my third class at the ReBuilding Center, How to Frame a Wall. The first two, Building Boxes and Building Sawhorses, were women only classes and a great introduction to the elemental power tools used in woodworking. These have been my first foray back into the wood shop since I was a U of O architecture student back in the late 90’s. Back then I took the coveted two term Furniture Making Studio which typically had a waiting list a mile long. It took several terms of dissapointment before I finally got into the class, but it did not dissapoint. The first term was all about learning about the tools and how to use them safely, through a series of small projects. The second term was devoted to bringing your furniture design to life. For some reason I ingnored the advice to keep my project realistic in scope & size and decided to tackle a 6’ x 6’ room divider/screen/shelf of mixed materials that at some point I nicknamed Hank. I had aspirations that some day I would be living in some type of open loft concept and Hank would be my bespoke room decor game changer. After lugging him around for years, including moving from Eugene to Portland and then from apartments to homes, I had to come to the realization that Hank wasn’t a great fit in any of these spaces & I gifted him to my sister. I still run into Hank when I visit her, and I’m happy he’s apparently become an unexpected family heirloom….
My classes at the ReBuilding Center reminded me of what the wood shop teaches us, wether we are in architecture or not. These are my top five takeaways:
Being in the moment. Walk into any shop class and the main theme is how to work with tools in a safe manner. You can’t really disengage and let your mind wander when you’re around something that could cut your arm off, so working around power tools forces you to be in the moment.
Perfection is the enemy of good. When I started my first class, Building Boxes, I took so much time laying out the peices that I was totally behind the rest of the class. My perfectionism made me anxious and crazy for the remainder of the class and I beat myself up over the quality of the final product versus appreciating what I had learned.
Think holistically. When I took my second class, Building Sawhorses, I made a point to enjoy the process versus being overly perfectionist (read #2). Unfortunately I should have been a bit more perfectionist in my cuts because my sawhorses ended up not stacking on top of each other and taking up twice as much room in my garage! The point though, is to consider the whole of the project, what you can afford to move quickly on as well as what needs to be properly considered.
Practice makes progress. Time spent doing projects and becoming familiar with the tools will reward you with quality projects. There is a pretty direct correlation between time spent and positive feedback/high quality. Plus, working with others in class helps strengthen your problem solving & team building muscles.
Commit. Following through on your cuts, wether it’s on the table saw or with the circular saw, rewards you with clean cuts. Trusting in the framing hammer & leveraging it’s weight rather than your wrist, allows for more powerful hits. Going all in is critical for progress in the wood shop!
I’m sure I had similar takeaways when I was doing my furniture building studio back at U of O but stepping in now, as a career architect, made for a powerful eureka moment. Creativity and stepping up as a designer is all about risk, realizing that there might not be a perfect solution but willing to go all in to figure out the best route. The emotions and anxieties surrounding a wood shop project are very similar to those of a creative problem, so solving one gives you insight into solving the other. So although my five takeaways were directly inspired by my ongoing journey towards building my construction skills, I’m well aware of their relevance in my daily design practice.