N3 Coffee Table in Walnut and Glass
by Aaron Scott · Brooklyn, United States

Brooklyn-based designer Aaron Scott was raised in the mountains and forests of Southwest Oregon. He studied philosophy at the University of Colorado, Boulder, followed by fine art at the San Francisco Art Institute. Since moving to NYC in the late 90s Scott has worked in a variety of mediums – film, sculpture, writing and furniture design. Drawing inspiration from nature, science and mathematics, Scott’s work explores relationships of space, light and movement. Using a meticulous, labor-intensive process that relies on the hand and the eye, improvisation and experimentation, Scott has developed a body of sculptural furniture characterized by complex geometries, rotational symmetry and unconventional engineering. Since the early 2000s Scott’s furniture has been built using the stacked-laminate method – a technique that relies on the careful laying-out of alternating grain patterns on parallel pieces of wood, overlapped in successive layers. The process is both additive and subtractive. In the first stage the rough form is built by stacking glued-up layers, each corresponding to a given point on the x, y or z axes. These layers, laminated together in a stair-like or topographical form, are then sculpted with handheld power tools to obtain the final, smooth surface. With each new piece Scott attempts to push the boundaries of the medium of wood and his own imagination, posing and re-posing the question to himself: Which parts of the form are essential and which can be removed?