October 23, 2015
Thinking Through Design and Production
I spent this summer working for VCA, a Northampton based company that produces high end furniture and architectural elements. I worked as a shop intern, assisting with various tasks throughout the production process. As a Critical Social Thought major, I am interested in how knowledge and information moves between paradigms. Woodworking exists in a liminal space where human ideas are negotiated within material constraints. Along the process of production, information is translated between different modes of understanding. The information a designer makes about a project differs from the information the architect produces, and the project as the craftsman eventually produces it. VCA works on some of the most specialized and expensive furniture and architectural elements in the world. There is both internal collaboration between architects and woodworkers at VCA, as well a negotiation of ideas between VCA and outside designers.
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