Second-year Interior Design students are creating Shaker tables as part of their Furniture Design course taught by Profs. Natalie Ellis and Tracy Howard. Shaker furniture is known for its careful attention to proportion, form and function.
Under guided supervision, they are crafting the tables from start to finish in the Gibbs College of Architecture’s Creating_Making Lab. Once finished, the students have the opportunity to take them home if they purchase the wood used to produce their projects.
A student constructs a table.
“Most of the students come into this class with little or no furniture crafting experience; as interior designers, we are used to drawing out our ideals but most often, we aren’t building the object,” said Ellis. “The table encourages the students to see the material of wood as an artistic material source.”
The opportunity to construct a piece of furniture allows insight into the way that we conceive and document furniture designs.
“It’s one thing for you, as a designer, to pick out a table that matches your design, order it from a manufacturer, and put it into a space,” said Ashley Schlepp, a student in the course. “It’s an entirely different perspective when you get to experience the hard work, critical thinking, and elbow grease that go into making that table yourself.”
View a video feature exploring the students' work below.
Christopher C. Gibbs College of Architecture professor and Institute for Quality Communities Director Dr. Amber N. Wiley’s book, Model Schools in the Model City: Race, Planning, and Education in the Nation’s Capital, has received two major honors from the Urban History Association.
Research initiated by Christopher C. Gibbs College of Architecture alumna Naila Hasan during her master’s studies at the University of Oklahoma has continued through faculty collaboration and resulted in a peer-reviewed publication in HERD: Health Environments Research & Design Journal.
Gibbs College of Architecture is pleased to announce Esther Thorp, Tyler Boydstun and Chukwuma Nwokoye as the winners of the 2026 Construction Innovation Translation Hub (CIThub) Student Ideas Competition.
