Sashimono Furniture Joinery

Fascinated with the precision, practicality and beauty of the traditional Japanese joinery joint - Chidori - a Sashimono technique allowing furniture and items to be assembled without the use of nails or adhesive, this project explored the potential of digitalising the fabrication of the joint.

Adopting CNC digital fabrication tools, a process was designed for making three dimensional cuts to timber elements upon multiple faces.

To ensure that cuts were made with precision despite each timber part needing to be rotated  and turned between cut paths, a bed made up of negative recesses was fixed down, each homing the individual timber elements and allowing their position to remain consistent between turns.

Following several cut paths, an intricate three dimensional carving was made to three separate timber parts, each of which come together to form a carpentry joint than can lock without nails or adhesive, through simply slotting  and rotating the parts together.

The aim of the project was to explore how a joint reliant upon the experience and precision of master carpentry could instead become accessible to many with access to modern digital fabrication tools.