Hello my name is Chris Wachuta!

You’ve reached my Project Portfolio.

There were two main projects I worked on this semester. The first being a floating bookshelf made from thrifted books and the second being a lighted bottle display. These projects were fun to make but I still struggle to get beyond the functionality of a project. In both projects, I let the aesthetics be second to function.

For my first project I created a floating bookshelf. The inspiration for this came from my love of reading and my distaste for the plain bookshelf I have in my room.

In this photo you can see the L-brackets used to support the book that will mount it to a wall. The whole book has been glued shut to prevent the bottom cover and pages below the bracket to sag as well as to add some more structural integrity. I was excited that I got this design to work but would have liked to find a less obstructive method so that the books could be reused. This project was a success, it works at a bookshelf and provides a unique aesthetic experience through its ‘floating’ feature.

For the second project I created a lighted color changing bottle display out of wood.

I wanted to follow a sleek industrial aesthetic to display the bottles that I have around the house. I think this project came out great and it looks even better in-person. I am super proud of this project and expect to have it for a long time. In the future I could definitely see adding a more personalized touch or element to this project but overall I am very pleased.

I was able to use this class as a creative outlet but if I was to do it over again I would work to get out of my comfort zone in creating something that doesn’t or wouldn’t need a functional aspect. For whatever reason this is a hard mental barrier for me to cross and definitely something that involves a lot of creative artistic vision. The best outlet for this is through my photography. I’ll plug my photography website here: https://chriswachuta.myportfolio.com.

Thanks for visiting and here’s links to my projects mentioned above.

Floating bookshelf https://www.aesdes.org/2024/02/21/floating-bookshelf/

Bottle display https://www.aesdes.org/2024/04/24/final-report-part-1-the-bottle-display/