Table for 7 coming up!

U of C designs table for quadruplets

By Joe Obad

On August 12 last year, Environmental Design student J.P. Jepp, his wife Karen and their son Simon, 2, welcomed Autumn, Brooke, Calissa and Dahlia to the world. The four girls made headlines far beyond Calgary for good reason. Identical quadruplets occur in only one in 13 million births.

For the past eight months, J.P. and Karen have had a crash course in raising five children. “It’s been crazy,” says J.P. “But when we’re not totally exhausted it’s thrilling.”

Watching the Jepps at home you quickly see they need near-military organization to accommodate their four girls and older son. “We don’t want them to be ‘quads’; we want them to be individuals,” says Karen.

When Loraine Fowlow, EVDS’ interim dean, asked what the faculty could do for the Jepps, organization played a key part in the conversation. Eventually, Fowlow and the Jepps decided on a table especially designed to help J.P. and Karen with meals.

EVDS industrial design graduate Georgia Houston and Faculty of Fine Arts studio technician Nathan Tremblay have been enlisted to design and build the table.

“Eating together as a family is really important to us,” says Karen. “I like the way that Georgia’s design includes all of us and will adapt with us over time.”

The table will be modular with a couple of possible configurations. Initially it will be shaped like an arc with one parent sitting in the centre and able to feed the small audience. Later it will become the family table.