Above all else, Nick Sugihara is inspired by craftsmanship. The San Diego–based woodworker strives to bridge the gap between contemporary design and historical handicrafts. “When I look at a lot of furniture being built these days, I often feel that the cooler it looks, the worse it’s made,” he tells Business of Home. “That’s because in many cases, the people who are really interested in learning the trade are not the same people who want to push the aesthetic, so you end up with a disconnect in the final product.”
When Sugihara was growing up in Southern California, his Midwestern-raised mother exposed him to Shaker-style furniture, while his Japanese father infused their home with traditional East Asian motifs. “I’ve never consciously worked toward either aesthetic, but those elements are obviously [present in my designs].”
As an adult, he embarked on a career in fashion design, working for an array of apparel companies—including Baggu and Westerlind—before launching his own workwear brand, Ijji, in 2016, which he still runs today. However, everything changed when the pandemic hit and Sugihara wanted shelves for his newly in-home office. “I made the false assumption that I could do it myself for less money than paying someone,” he says.
He spent the next few years immersing himself in carpentry, slowly learning the craft through books, online tutorials and lots of practice. “I have a bit of an obsessive streak, so once the door was cracked open a little bit, I was all in,” he says. “I’m self-taught in the sense that I never attended any formal schooling, but there is such a wealth of information out there that it almost feels wrong to suggest that I taught myself.”
In late 2023 he debuted Sugihara Fine Furniture, not long after showcasing one of his inaugural designs at his own wedding. “My wife is Persian, and we wanted to do a Sofreh Aghd, a traditional wedding spread, as part of the ceremony, so I built a low table that we sat behind,” he explains. “I look at it now and see the root of a lot of my work: the strong architecture of a Japanese temple, the flowing lines of Persian tapestry, and the stark simplicity of Shaker construction—it feels very American to me.”
Sugihara crafts each of his pieces by using tools and techniques that have been around for generations. “I cut all of the joinery and process a lot of the lumber with nothing more than a hand plane, a couple of saws and a set of chisels,” he says. “A single piece can take anywhere between 30 and 150 hours to complete.” Though his minimalist, contemporary Arts and Crafts–esque furnishings are brought to life from beautiful locally sourced hardwoods, he says it’s the centuries-old craft techniques that make all the difference in the final design. “I get enormous satisfaction from building something that can have a long life of its own,” he says. “The dovetails I use on drawers I’m building are essentially the same as those used by Egyptian carpenters 3,500 years ago; I just use them in a modern context.”
In May, Assembly Line commissioned Sugihara to turn his mortise-and-tenon Pillow table into an exclusive bench design, which was on display at the Brooklyn furniture store’s “Time & Materials” exhibit during NYCxDesign 2024. “I love the technique of taking a square piece of wood and rounding it over with a hand plane,” he says. “If done well, you can create this nice contrast between a soft curve and a well-defined edge that almost gives you the sense of the wood billowing outward.”
Currently hard at work designing furniture for a client’s residence in Santa Cruz, Sugihara continues to develop new products while expanding his service offerings. “I would love to be working on larger-scale projects and have the opportunity to be designing whole spaces rather than just individual pieces,” he says. “I think a small studio with big clients is the dream for any craftsperson.”
If you want to learn more about Nick Sugihara, visit his website or Instagram.
