The Coolest Thing to Do Now: Build Your Own Chair in a Woodworking Studio

Pottery and oil-painting classes had their moment; now people are flocking to woodworking studios. Experiences that sell the act of "creating" are catching on with ordinary people, and designing such an experience turns out to be a complicated, enjoyable business that says a lot about human nature.

At midnight, the B1 level of the Dahua Hualing International office tower in Hangzhou is still brightly lit. In a basement of nearly 2,000 square meters stand thirty wooden workbenches, grouped by stage of work (cutting, drilling, assembly, sanding), along with band saws, table saws, milling machines, drill presses and other machines. Chen Cheng, slight and wearing an industrial dust mask, is still at the lathe, turning the rear leg of a chair that is nearly finished.

"I'm wiped out," she tells the few friends who haven't gone home yet, stopping once the two ends of the leg look about right in proportion.

This is her fourth class in making the "Cow Horn Chair." The studio is open to woodworking enthusiasts like her. Many people with no experience sign up purely out of interest; most had never imagined they could make a piece of furniture with their own hands. The studio's two founders, Gao Changqian and Xu Guangju, started it because they saw an untapped market in exactly these people.

Woodworking has an edge over other crafts as a mass hobby: every step of working wood can be done with tools and machines.

Three years ago, Gao Changqian, then a visual designer at Alibaba, met Xu Guangju, a road and bridge engineer, through their shared love of woodworking. They rented a bare farmhouse in Gouzhuang, Hangzhou, bought a few machines, and began to "play" with wood in earnest. Both had already followed handcraft for years as die-hard woodworking fans, spending their spare time at home with books and videos, studying all kinds of forms and joints. The latest news about them: Jack Ma brought a group of star CEO students from Hupan University here for a two-day course in making wooden xylophones.

Star CEO students of Hupan University learning to make a wooden xylophone

Abroad, DIY woodworking is a hugely popular hobby, and many families have a workshop of their own. The United States alone has more than 40 million home woodworking shops, about one for every 8 people. The industry that serves hobbyists is finely divided and offers a huge range of products; table saws alone sustain a large industry. In China, a circle of woodworking enthusiasts first emerged around 2001, but it stayed small, insiders amusing themselves, and no large studios open to the public appeared.

In 2014, Gao Changqian visited Taiwan and found its market for woodworking hobbyists already mature. "Taiwan has 23 million people, and 500,000 of them are woodworking enthusiasts. Studios of every size, offering every kind of service, are spread across the island, and the supply chain for tools, equipment and consumables is well developed. Apply that proportion to the mainland's population and the number is enormous." This convinced him and Xu Guangju that "playing with wood" might be a business worth building.

They decided to open their Gouzhuang workshop to the public and teach simple classes in making wooden spoons and bowls. "For the first session we were just testing the waters. We put 10 spots up on WeChat and 14 people signed up. Before the second session I told Changqian that if more than 20 signed up, I'd quit my job. In the end 30 came," Xu Guangju told QDaily.

Gao Changqian and Xu Guangju's simple workshop in Gouzhuang, Hangzhou

From there, the idea of starting a business took hold and would not let go. In July 2014 the two quit their jobs one after the other. With their savings, plus 1 million yuan from an investor who was himself a woodworking fan, they found a new, larger site and opened a woodworking studio called Mylab in central Hangzhou. They chose the name because they wanted it to be a laboratory for wood, a place to create freely and let the imagination run.

Whether the studio would survive depended on whether they had read the market right: whether there was a broad base of people interested in handmade woodwork, and whether they could identify and meet the core demand behind paying for an experience.

Like the pottery bars and oil-painting classrooms that were once in vogue, woodworking studios are a hobby built on experience. If you are an arty young person who follows handcraft, you may also have heard of niche studios for leatherwork, textile craft, ironwork and the like.

But in Gao Changqian's view, woodworking has an edge over them as a mass hobby: it looks complicated, but it is actually easy to get into. Working wood is already highly mechanized, and any step can be done with tools and machines. Wood can be made into a vast range of things, from houses and cars to everyday furniture, and once you have learned to use the machines, you can "create" something.

"Playing" with wood is a niche experience that has only just emerged, but Gao Changqian and Xu Guangju want to turn it into a mass hobby, the way you would run a gym.

Woodworking studios in China commonly make money from hobby classes, tool and equipment sales, custom-designed woodwork, and their own furniture brands. Some take on several of these at once, to make up for how little hobby classes alone bring in. "But for now our thinking is very clear: we focus on two things, courses and memberships, and do what we are best at. What we are not good at, I'd rather leave to others," Xu Guangju says.

Of the studio's nearly 2,000 square meters, Mylab uses 800 for teaching and equipment. A central wall divides the space, with machines on one side and hand work on the other, plus a classroom just for sanding. This seemingly simple layout has been rearranged no fewer than 7 times.

"At first we thought it was best to put all the machines together. Later we found that was wrong. Many machines get used again and again; some are used a lot, others much less; and each kind needs a different amount of space. Only once you really understand the equipment and know all its uses do you know the most sensible way to arrange it," Xu Guangju says.

Since the studio opened, Xu Guangju has been busy working out how to get machines and people to work together better. He calls this "infrastructure building": replanning the space, linking the machines into one system, a card-swipe system for operating them, and setting up a woodworking library, a coffee corner, an events area and a display area for finished work. Together these make up the service he wants to offer woodworking enthusiasts. The aim is to make learning as easy as possible, so that complete beginners can get started quickly, safely and conveniently, and find here the kind of atmosphere you otherwise get only in a professional club.

The rest and social area set up for students

The display area for woodwork made by students

"The library and the reception classroom are there so that as soon as you arrive, you know what you can and can't do here. We don't treat woodworking as a vocational skill, and we don't think of ourselves as a school. We're a space where we play alongside you. It's like a gym: once you come in, there are coaches and programs, and whatever you want to make, we'll help you. When you don't want anyone guiding you, you can just open a book and read on your own," Gao Changqian told QDaily.

People who come to the studio fall into two groups, "members" and "students." Members pay a one-time annual fee and can then freely use everything, including the space, the machines and the materials, to make whatever they want, with a full-time coach guiding them. At 20,000 yuan a year the fee is not low, and it keeps out some beginners. But if you are a seasoned woodworker with lasting interest who wants to come in every week, paying 1,380 yuan for a wooden horse class (2 days) and 4,800 yuan for a Cow Horn Chair class (6 days) is clearly a worse deal than becoming a member.

The people who come to the studio come from every walk of life, but most crave novelty and a way of living that sets them apart.

Talk to the people who come to learn, and you find they cover almost every occupation, from students, lawyers, doctors and police officers to office workers and housewives. Complete novices and trained designers start from the same point on the same footing, and although woodworking has a somewhat masculine image, no gap shows up by age or gender.

Look closer, though, and these people share certain traits. They seek novelty and a way of living apart from the crowd, and they dislike following a set routine. Many have studied painting, pottery, dance or rock climbing, and now want a pastime that offers a richer experience and more room for imagination. Designers are especially well represented, making up 30-40% of the total.

Gao Changqian and Xu Guangju see designers as the key group in making woodworking a popular hobby. They spread taste and set trends. The first people who came to learn at Mylab wanted to try it precisely because they had seen many designers' work. Mylab's full-time teachers, Haidan, Xiao Q and Dahai, have worked as an industrial designer, an interior designer and an architect, and every one of them plans to start a personal furniture brand someday. Teaching here lets them pass on skills and sharpen their own.

Dang Xinyu, a member born in the 1990s who studies industrial design, comes with a more specific goal: preparing for the China International Furniture Fair in September. His school offers no course in making furniture, and a place like Mylab fills a gap left by design teaching that neglects hands-on practice. Others think the same way, including Walt, a teacher at the Kuala Lumpur Institute of Art, and Li Ying of the architecture firm SHL. Walt even brought students from his interior design department all the way from Kuala Lumpur over the summer break, flying back as soon as they had learned to make the chair.

But most students are ordinary people like Chen Cheng, who know nothing about design or construction and simply want to try something new. Chen Cheng, 27, runs her own business, a teahouse in Shanghai. Her hobbies range widely: besides woodworking, she studies the guqin and rock climbing. Before taking on the difficult Cow Horn Chair, she had done a 2-day wooden horse class, and when the finished horse finally stood in front of her, this outgoing young woman almost cried.

Like Chen Cheng, Du Li, a 40-year-old television producer, loves handcraft. After seeing Mylab's course videos on Weibo, she came all the way from Hubei to learn to make the Cow Horn Chair. In her view, people willing to try woodworking all have a love of life. "Wood is something people grow attached to. If you don't believe me, ask these people whether they put their feelings into the work," Du Li says, pointing to a classmate behind her sanding a chair back.

Ken, 35, who works in cosmetics e-commerce, is a little different. He too is curious by nature and likes to try different hobbies, but he cares more about what woodwork is good for. "Whatever you make, you can take home and use right away. And a wooden plate or bowl you made yourself means more, even when you give it away."

Novelty, the satisfaction of making something, a cool attitude to life, stress relief, doing things together and design know-how: this is what woodworking studios can offer ordinary people for now.

Either way, turning a piece of timber into a finished object, making something out of nothing, captures the whole joy of "creating." For city dwellers used to buying everything and meeting every daily need with standardized products, this experience is rare indeed.

"When I finished a wooden horse and posted it on Moments, it blew up! Everyone was clamoring to come. When I finish one thing, I can't wait to start another class. What I love most is sanding: taking something that looked really crappy (rough) at the start and making it really smooth with your own hands. It feels amazing, even when you're covered in dust and wood shavings," Chen Cheng says.

The satisfaction of making something, shared again on social media, gives people who try woodworking almost endless motivation, and it pulls more people into the hobby.

Every student leaves a treasured group photo taken with their finished work

One fairly convincing piece of evidence: Mylab has not run a single ad since opening and relies entirely on its own posts on Weibo and WeChat. People usually come because they saw someone they know doing it, classic word of mouth, friends bringing friends. You would hardly expect so many slight young women like Chen Cheng to love a skill that looks this tough. A woodworking shop is far from comfortable or clean, and the work sometimes takes real physical strength. But precisely because it is hard, others easily see it as a sign of a "cool" attitude to life.

To some extent, "hard" and "cool" turn into each other. When a student posts a short video of turning a chair leg on Moments, with a caption like "I finally finished it," he also turns from an ordinary person into someone who takes on challenges, and his friends instantly look up to him. The current reverence for handicraft, artisans and "the artisan spirit," repeated again and again in the media, also quietly echoes this respect for hard work and honest labor.

Woodworking also demands full concentration; one careless step can spoil the overall shape or weaken the structure. In making a Cow Horn Chair, sanding the chair back alone takes several days, and the process tests a person's patience and composure to the limit. But for that very reason, the person at work can lose themselves in the craft, with no room in their head for anything else, and that in itself relieves stress.

Unlike painting or pottery, which you can do alone, woodworking is often a group effort. People share the same machine and lend each other a hand, and along the way it is easy to form a precious bond. "A group of people getting together to do something they love" is a hard experience to come by these days.

Helping each other finish a piece is a common sight in the studio

"A small girl like me can't even get a lot of the heavy machines open, and I'm not good at turning on the lathe either. It's a 6-day intensive with a tight schedule, so everyone is rushing. At times like that you think, oh no, I'm done for, what do I do? And every time, someone comes over and says, 'I'll turn it for you.' Those moments moved me so much," Chen Cheng told QDaily.

From her first day of class to the day she left, Chen Cheng felt moved like this every day. To her the studio is almost a home, a place where you easily feel the warmth of strangers. Dang Xinyu feels the same way and also treats the place as home, but for a different reason: the studio not only gives fledgling designers like him professional equipment and space, it also taught him techniques and a way of thinking about design.

"When I designed before, I was always facing a computer or talking to factories, and all I had in my head were numbers and shapes. But now that I make prototypes myself and handle the actual material, I think about design more practically and more in tune with the material itself. That's actually a more sensible approach, and I find it really interesting," Dang Xinyu told QDaily.

Novelty, the satisfaction of making something, a cool attitude to life, stress relief, doing things together and design know-how: this is what woodworking studios can offer ordinary people for now. How well a studio delivers these and draws in more enthusiasts is also the measure of how professional and complete it is.

The key to a sense of achievement is letting people see a "result." The harder the piece, the greater the satisfaction, but there must also be room for personal creativity.

"Giving students a sense of achievement is the most important thing, but not everyone enjoys learning for its own sake. There has to be a result," Xu Guangju told QDaily. That is why courses at studios large and small across China today center on making a woodwork product rather than on mastering basic skills: it keeps people interested from start to finish. And when they develop a course, the principle is not, as most people imagine, to finish as quickly and easily as possible. Instead, the whole experience is carefully designed, with more steps done by hand.

"That includes the order of work, which machines are needed, and using as many machines as possible on a single piece. That's not how a factory does it. In a factory, a board like this would just be cut out in one go." "But we don't want to do it that way," Xu Guangju says, pointing to the fan-shaped back of the Cow Horn Chair.

The Cow Horn Chair that keeps coming up is a classic by the Danish furniture master Hans J. Wegner. With its distinctive form and perfect proportions, it is considered one of the most beautiful chairs in the world. It is also the hardest course any woodworking studio in China has developed so far.

A student's Cow Horn Chair in progress

To make sure every student can take on this complex piece, Xu Guangju broke the build down into a detailed sequence: selecting the wood, cutting, squaring the stock, pre-cutting the mortise-and-tenon joints, turning on the lathe, shaping on the band saw, copy-shaping on the milling machine, assembly, sanding, and fitting the seat cushion. He also switched some steps normally done on CNC machines to handwork.

Every student who has finished the Cow Horn Chair, without exception, has come away with a huge sense of achievement. As in mountain climbing, where whoever reaches the highest peak feels the greatest joy, the bigger the piece, the greater a woodworker's pleasure. But simply following the steps to produce something complex is not the whole answer. Leaving room for personal creativity is also a crucial part of designing the experience.

A teacher demonstrates how to make a pen on the lathe

"Take the simplest class, making a pen. The process is the same for everyone, but whether the pen is wider at the top or the bottom, curved or triangular, is entirely up to you. If you make a wooden plate, square or oval is your call too. We put no limits on shape," Gao Changqian says.

People love being able to create something without thinking too hard. But unless they feel the work bears their own personal mark, no one wants to make a mere copy.

On the last night of the Cow Horn Chair course, Chen Cheng rubbed wax oil into the chair she had just finished, and carved her name into the leg she had turned until her arms ached.

(Some names in this article are pseudonyms.)

Cover image from kaguno-fukutake.jp