HD·FI·02 Basic → Advanced
Furniture Construction & Joinery
How pieces of wood become a structure that lasts decades.
Joinery determines a furniture piece's structural integrity, cost, and character. This course covers traditional and modern joinery methods, how joint choice affects durability and assembly cost, and the construction decisions that separate furniture built to last from furniture built to sell once.
In Development
This course's full module content is being written. The outline below is final, subscribe for updates when it publishes.
LEARNING OUTCOMES
- 01 Compare traditional and modern joinery methods for strength and cost
- 02 Select a joint type appropriate to a furniture piece's load and use case
- 03 Explain how joinery choice affects assembly cost and manufacturability at scale
- 04 Evaluate an existing furniture joint for structural adequacy
- 05 Design construction details that anticipate wood movement over time
- 06 Distinguish furniture built for durability from furniture built for one-time appeal
- Traditional joints persist because they work mechanically, not from habit alone
- Understanding why a joint works enables adapting it to new contexts
- Modern joinery optimises for assembly cost and shipping, not just strength
- This trade-off should be made deliberately, not by default
- Joint strength requirements scale with actual use case, not material alone
- The same material can need very different joints in different furniture types
- Scale changes which joints are practical to produce
- Manufacturability at volume is a legitimate joinery selection criterion
- Wood movement is a long-term, not immediate, structural risk
- Failing to accommodate movement causes delayed, not immediate, joint failure
- Construction quality is visible to a trained eye even when hidden from a casual buyer
- Briefs should state the intended service life explicitly, not leave it assumed