This box was commissioned as a present to the president of Berklee College of Music, who was responsible for the creation of this new building. The idea was to build an aesthetically pleasing abstraction of the building rather than an exact model. As the building facades are entirely glass, I chose a highly figured grey-dyed English sycamore as the main wood.
It was decided to leave out the multi-story tower that rises above the larger base of the building and to focus on the six lower floors which are the core of student activity. Very important was to show the floor plans of these six floors, which I did using strips of veneer to indicate walls and stairways. Each floor is a layer of the box and lifts off to reveal the layer beneath. The four above ground layers are deep enough to be containers. For aesthetic reasons I made the two basement levels shallower and combined them into the base of the box.
Frank Lloyd Wright's iconic house needs no introduction. The box is made of eucalyptus, curly maple and black dyed costello, and there are four compartments. There is a compartment on each of the four levels of the house: a drawer pulls forward on each of the three lower floors, and the roof lifts of pf the top floor. The box measures 9"h - 19"w - 11"d.
This box was commissioned by Gore Place to try to make its newly restored carriage house more understandable for sight-impaired visitors. Both interior and exterior details were important, and some labeling in Braille was required.
When you lift off the roof of the box, you find a removable plaque with a raised floor plan of the building with the rooms labeled in Braille: carriage room, tack room, harness room, and stalls.The plaque sits on the floor of the loft of the carriage house, and to the right are the openings through which hay was dropped into the stalls below. When the plaques is removed the loft floor can be lifted out to reveal the main floor below.
When the loft floor is removed, the main floor rooms are revealed with highly detailed stalls with arched entries and curved stall walls, and stall floors with channels that once directed urine and dung to a trough with a hinged cover. The cover was lifted and the waste swept down to the basement below. This box also has a cover that can be opened. The dimensions are large enough that a hand can comfortably explore the various details of the interior.
The woods are cherry and maple, and the box on its base measures 8" h - 22"w - 14"d.
This small architectural fantasy is a jewelry box commissioned for a friend. The recessed lid is lifted out by means of the open skylight, revealing a tray compartment. When this is lifted out three more compartments are revealed. The oblong compartment is also a tray that can be lifted out. At the base a shallow drawer pulls out.
The woods are figured cherry and maple, and the box measures 7” high by 11 1/2” long by 9” wide.
