Ipe Hardwood Table

This unbelievably dense, heavy, strong and fire-resistant (class A) wood was the right choice for this outdoor dining table. The initial goal of this project was to understand whether this wood is a good building material. Working with Ipe hardwood was a pleasure. Although it’s still not clear whether it would be a practical building material in high-quality design and construction.

An incredible lesson in constructability, materiality, lead time and sequencing with wood. Working with Ipe (Handroanthus) hardwood was not quite as challenging as the experts made it sound. However, pre-drilling holes and good quality tools are required. Here’s a excellent video that compared different wood species after they were exposed to the elements for 15-years: Mataverde Ipe Decking

It’s important for architects and designers to occasionally break out from their realm of pen and paper (computer and mouse these days). It can be humbling to feel the struggle to personally acquire the correct materials that get the job done within the parameters of the design intent. Learning about the frustration of how materials don’t always work as easily in the real world, compared to when we design them conceptually, is a significant lesson it itself. Often during design, if we don’t find a readily available building element, we will begin designing something to be custom. And a project, such as this, can show a designer that custom-shaped materials not only increases cost exponentially, but also the time and complexity of completing the work. When in reality, using typical materials can produce a beautiful product too.

Architects that work with contractors know the feeling well, when the builder asks to construct something in a different way. Usually the nuances of an RFI (Request for Information) of the change is obscured – whether it be for cost, availability or constructability. While personally building this table may have appeared straight-forward, I had to make several compromises. I altered the design in places to make it a reality within the schedule of only two days, with no screw-ups and and material requiring a week of lead time! The work had to get done and it had to be right the first time.

The following was the process from start to finish.