Alright, in the interest of promoting some postings and discussion; here
is a topic I don't think has been addressed.
We all know that furniture scale to human dimensions is important,
particularly for tables, chairs and desks and that various rules of thumb
have been developed over the years to address how to scale those objects
for the human form.
My question relates to scaling furniture for a room. A piece that looks
good in a magazine or other setting may be way out of scale in a
woodworker's intended application (either too large or too small for a
room). In the past, I have resorted to mock-ups and tape outlines to help
determine scale and found that the tape outline is only a poor indicator of
how things will look -- the mockup is a much higher fidelity measure, but
takes more time. I have also been burned by building something from plans
that later look too large in my setting. Are there any good rules of thumb
for what looks good in a particular setting other than a mockup?
--
If you're going to be dumb, you better be tough
Mark & Juanita wrote:
>
> Alright, in the interest of promoting some postings and discussion; here
> is a topic I don't think has been addressed.
>
> We all know that furniture scale to human dimensions is important,
> particularly for tables, chairs and desks and that various rules of thumb
> have been developed over the years to address how to scale those objects
> for the human form.
>
> My question relates to scaling furniture for a room. A piece that looks
> good in a magazine or other setting may be way out of scale in a
> woodworker's intended application (either too large or too small for a
> room). In the past, I have resorted to mock-ups and tape outlines to help
> determine scale and found that the tape outline is only a poor indicator of
> how things will look -- the mockup is a much higher fidelity measure, but
> takes more time. I have also been burned by building something from plans
> that later look too large in my setting. Are there any good rules of thumb
> for what looks good in a particular setting other than a mockup?
>
> --
> If you're going to be dumb, you better be tough
Well there's always cardboard and duct tape for a QnD mock up
of the basic size.
One solution I'm playing with is using Google's SketcUp. You can do
the room the piece is going to go in in 3-D, make a 3-D drawing of
the piece, or a sketchy version with just the height, length and
depth and position it in the room. Then you can "walk through"
the room and see how things look.
Head over to
www.go-2-school.com
click the videos and watch "Kitchen in 20 minutes" - several times
- AFTER you've downloaded and installed SketchUp (which is FREE).
With SketchUp opened, you can watch the video and play with the
ideas right in SketchUp.
Hell, Google has a library of already made 3-D "components" (models)
you can download for FREE. Something about the size of what you
have in mind should be somewhere in that vast library - and you can
tweek the model you download to the size of your piece.
SketchUp is a pretty powerful 3-D application that's pretty easy
to begin using. Getting good with it on the other hand, does have
a learning curve to climb.
charlie b
Mark & Juanita wrote:
> Yep, making physical models is an effective mechanism. There are times,
> however, when this is impractical. For example, designing an entertainment
> center for a space that already contains some version of the electronics.
> Certainly one can move things around temporarily, but this is not an ideal
> solution.
snip
> I guess what I'm poking at is the question of whether there is anything
> resembling the rules of thumb for human scale for furniture (e.g. 24" per
> diner at a table) that would be a good first order assessment for a piece
> to fit in a room. I was thinking of this as an extension to the
> human-scaling of furniture (x" of space between furniture pieces, fill no
> more than y% of wall space, pieces should be no larger than some dimension
> of a room, etc.) It seems like some general rules of esthetics would be
> available as a first order scaling estimate.
I suspect that there's an Interior Design book or two with that type
of info. I know there are books on ergonomics that provide counter
top height, dining table height, chair height, sofa height, width per
person etc.
I doubt howere that there are any rules of thumb about how much
wall length can have a sideboard or table.
But there must be some rules of thumb on scale, given a context.
Maybe you should put together some first cuts at some of them
and see what this group comes up with.
charlie b
charlieb wrote:
> Mark & Juanita wrote:
>>
>> Alright, in the interest of promoting some postings and discussion;
>> here
>> is a topic I don't think has been addressed.
>>
>> We all know that furniture scale to human dimensions is important,
>> particularly for tables, chairs and desks and that various rules of thumb
>> have been developed over the years to address how to scale those objects
>> for the human form.
>>
>> My question relates to scaling furniture for a room. A piece that looks
>> good in a magazine or other setting may be way out of scale in a
>> woodworker's intended application (either too large or too small for a
>> room). In the past, I have resorted to mock-ups and tape outlines to
>> help determine scale and found that the tape outline is only a poor
>> indicator of how things will look -- the mockup is a much higher fidelity
>> measure, but
>> takes more time. I have also been burned by building something from
>> plans
>> that later look too large in my setting. Are there any good rules of
>> thumb for what looks good in a particular setting other than a mockup?
>>
>> --
>> If you're going to be dumb, you better be tough
>
>
> Well there's always cardboard and duct tape for a QnD mock up
> of the basic size.
>
Yep, making physical models is an effective mechanism. There are times,
however, when this is impractical. For example, designing an entertainment
center for a space that already contains some version of the electronics.
Certainly one can move things around temporarily, but this is not an ideal
solution.
> One solution I'm playing with is using Google's SketcUp. You can do
> the room the piece is going to go in in 3-D, make a 3-D drawing of
> the piece, or a sketchy version with just the height, length and
> depth and position it in the room. Then you can "walk through"
> the room and see how things look.
>
I can see this as a reasonable solution that solves the issues identified
above. I did a version of this using VariCAD and Blender (since Sketchup
doesn't run under Linux) for my end tables.
I guess what I'm poking at is the question of whether there is anything
resembling the rules of thumb for human scale for furniture (e.g. 24" per
diner at a table) that would be a good first order assessment for a piece
to fit in a room. I was thinking of this as an extension to the
human-scaling of furniture (x" of space between furniture pieces, fill no
more than y% of wall space, pieces should be no larger than some dimension
of a room, etc.) It seems like some general rules of esthetics would be
available as a first order scaling estimate.
--
If you're going to be dumb, you better be tough
charlieb wrote:
> Mark & Juanita wrote:
.. snip
>> I guess what I'm poking at is the question of whether there is anything
>> resembling the rules of thumb for human scale for furniture (e.g. 24" per
>> diner at a table) that would be a good first order assessment for a piece
>> to fit in a room. I was thinking of this as an extension to the
>> human-scaling of furniture (x" of space between furniture pieces, fill no
>> more than y% of wall space, pieces should be no larger than some
>> dimension
>> of a room, etc.) It seems like some general rules of esthetics would be
>> available as a first order scaling estimate.
>
> I suspect that there's an Interior Design book or two with that type
> of info. I know there are books on ergonomics that provide counter
> top height, dining table height, chair height, sofa height, width per
> person etc.
>
That's a good idea, I'll have to take a look at some of those books to see
what they have.
> I doubt howere that there are any rules of thumb about how much
> wall length can have a sideboard or table.
>
> But there must be some rules of thumb on scale, given a context.
> Maybe you should put together some first cuts at some of them
> and see what this group comes up with.
If I could come up with some, I'd not have needed to ask the question. :-)
My problem is that I do OK with the esthetics of design for a piece, but
have problems with scale. I tend to build too big for the space and am
trying to overcome that problem.
--
If you're going to be dumb, you better be tough