Carpentry through Autoethnography: Exploring Patterns, Carvings, Measurement Practices, and Furniture-Making Processes for Cultural Sustainability and Teaching Innovation
Document Type
Paper presentation
School Name
University of San Agustin
School Code
N/A
Abstract / Executive Summary
This autoethnographic study explores carpentry practices in Barangay Bagacay through lived experience, highlighting how local craftsmanship embodies mathematical thinking and culturally grounded innovation that supports sustainable and holistic education. Through immersive participation at the Four Brothers Furniture Shop, the research documents patterns, carvings, measurement practices, and furniture-making processes to show how geometric concepts are intuitively applied in everyday work. Observed designs reveal embedded understandings of ellipses, parallelism, perpendicularity, tessellation, arcs and circles, pentagons, reflection, translation, scaling, and nature-inspired forms, demonstrating a fusion of aesthetic judgment and applied mathematics. Carvings serve as cultural expressions where symmetry and proportion reinforce artisan identity and community tradition, while measurement practices rely on tactile and visual estimation shaped by long-term experience rather than formal computation, highlighting embodied and contextual knowledge. The furniture-making process includes wood drying for durability, manual shaping and assembly, and detailed finishing through sanding, sealing, and coating to produce functional and refined outputs. Findings present carpentry as a multisensory, knowledge-rich practice where spatial reasoning, creativity, and cultural values intersect. The study supports Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 4 – Quality Education and SDG 11 – Sustainable Cities and Communities by promoting indigenous knowledge, skills preservation, contextualized learning, and the integration of local craftsmanship into mathematics and visual arts education for globally aware and culturally grounded learners.
Keywords:
autoethnography, traditional carpentry, geometric patterns, cultural carving, embodied measurement, sustainable furniture-making
Carpentry through Autoethnography: Exploring Patterns, Carvings, Measurement Practices, and Furniture-Making Processes for Cultural Sustainability and Teaching Innovation
This autoethnographic study explores carpentry practices in Barangay Bagacay through lived experience, highlighting how local craftsmanship embodies mathematical thinking and culturally grounded innovation that supports sustainable and holistic education. Through immersive participation at the Four Brothers Furniture Shop, the research documents patterns, carvings, measurement practices, and furniture-making processes to show how geometric concepts are intuitively applied in everyday work. Observed designs reveal embedded understandings of ellipses, parallelism, perpendicularity, tessellation, arcs and circles, pentagons, reflection, translation, scaling, and nature-inspired forms, demonstrating a fusion of aesthetic judgment and applied mathematics. Carvings serve as cultural expressions where symmetry and proportion reinforce artisan identity and community tradition, while measurement practices rely on tactile and visual estimation shaped by long-term experience rather than formal computation, highlighting embodied and contextual knowledge. The furniture-making process includes wood drying for durability, manual shaping and assembly, and detailed finishing through sanding, sealing, and coating to produce functional and refined outputs. Findings present carpentry as a multisensory, knowledge-rich practice where spatial reasoning, creativity, and cultural values intersect. The study supports Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 4 – Quality Education and SDG 11 – Sustainable Cities and Communities by promoting indigenous knowledge, skills preservation, contextualized learning, and the integration of local craftsmanship into mathematics and visual arts education for globally aware and culturally grounded learners.
