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 congratulates Thinh "Henry" Duong, a master's student in the Division of Interior Design, for earning first place in the 2026 Robert Bruce Thompson Annual Student Light Fixture Design Competition.
Gibbs College of Architecture Institute for Quality Communities (IQC) Director and Division of Planning, Landscape Architecture, and Design (PLAD) faculty member Amber N. Wiley, Ph.D., recently published a new book, Collective Yearning: Black Women Artists from the Zimmerli Art Museum.
In May, students from the Christopher C. Gibbs College of Architecture's Architecture, Environmental Design, and Interior Design programs participated in an intensive five-day Studio in Residence at Taliesin West, the iconic winter home and desert laboratory of Frank Lloyd Wright.
