Preserving classical joinery technique through contemporary form

Sun at Six specializes in solid hardwood furniture hand-constructed using techniques refined from traditional Ming Dynasty joinery, a method which uses intricate, interwoven joints to create furniture without the use of nails and screws.

 
We are a multi-generational studio, having learned these techniques from our mother, and she from her joinery master before her. For the last three and a half decades, between Sun at Six and our mother’s practice, we have produced all our work in her hometown, training successive generations of woodworkers in the art form of classical joinery.

Left: our mother, Maria. Right: Our mother's first workshop

 
Constructing solid wood furniture using joinery is deeply technical, and our own methods have been refined over the last four decades. As a natural material, wood ‘breathes’, expanding and contracting as it adjusts to changes in temperature and humidity.  Sent to faraway destinations with climates that differ significantly from that of the production origin, furniture constructed using strictly traditional technique is prone to cracking, warping, or other deformations. 
 
Our mother's life's work was to refine each and every joint in the system of classical Ming joinery to accommodate extreme variations in climates worldwide. It is this system that we still use today in each of our pieces.

 
Sun at Six pieces are all hand-crafted. Mortises, tenons, and the other fundamental building blocks of joinery-made furniture are precisely cut by machine, including the use of jigs and fixtures originally designed by our mother. Pieces are then hand-fitted and assembled by joinery masters, many of whom we’ve employed for over twenty years first through our mother, and now through Sun at Six.

The use of traditional joinery techniques has begun to fade. The complex joints are more expensive and difficult to cut, and fewer craftspeople remain who possess the specialized knowledge required. Though production of classical pieces has dwindled, we hope to create new opportunities by applying traditional technique to contemporary design. Each Sun at Six piece contains within it the collective knowledge of centuries of joinery masters, passed down, distilled, and formed into a discrete, beautiful, functional object.

°
 
See the techniques behind a few of our pieces

	Ten Chair
Woodbine Sideboard
	Kiral Bed