design Archives - Page 5 of 12

Amazing Wood Creations: Japanese Chapel Lined with Hand-Carved Lattice Panels

Posted on February 28, 2016 by Jeff Easterling

Beautifully intricate hand-carved wood tends to be utilized sparingly, in details like fireplace surrounds, railings, room screens and other decorative touches, but when it takes the main stage, it really shines. One stunning example can be found at the Ana Crowne Plaza Hotel in Hiroshima, Japan by Nikken Space Design, a space integrating Japanese wedding traditions with an emphasis on nature.

The artists translated designs often seen on kimonos into a pattern for an arching lattice structure creating a canopy roof over the chapel, enhancing its feeling of sacredness and serenity. Measuring twenty feet high and 62 feet long, the interior ceiling is comprised of 100 large hand-carved wooden panels featuring true emotions.

The panels represent a single tree arching over the guests as they sit at the pews in the chapel, with roots running to meet the floor, trunks stretching up the sides and individual branches sprouting leaves and flowers overhead. The wood was left unpainted to celebrate its natural beauty.

Molding as Modern Decor: More Creative Uses for Pine Products

Posted on January 30, 2016 by Jeff Easterling

Got a bunch of scraps of pine molding laying around that are too short to use? Don’t toss them away – they have the potential to be all sorts of things, from pendant lamps to pencil holders, as proven by the ‘Molding Plan’ project by designer Chialing Chang. The natural contours of these products make for surprisingly elegant decorative objects when they’re cut apart and glued back together in unexpected ways.

The Taipei-based designer noticed that the arc and beveled edge on a piece of molding, designed to conceal its mounting, have a contemporary value outside of their original intended purpose. Chang used three different kinds of molding to produce containers, hanging lamps and desktop organizers.

The containers are made of molding pieces cut into 45- and 60-degree angled segments and then reassembled to create stackable vessels. Ogee molding adds a visual flair to pendant lamps that’s simultaneously traditional and modern, and is also hollowed out and stacked to any height desired for corralling small items like pens, tape and rulers.

Not only can innovative adaptive reuse projects like this one inspire individual homeowners and woodworkers to approach timber products from a fresh perspective, it can also be a boost to the entire industry.

“The whole series are manufactured by wood craftsmen in Ningxia Road in Taipei City, Taiwan,” says Chang. “The street, where the wood industry and resources gather, has gradually declined under the impact of international economic downturn. Huge accumulated stocks of moldings are kept in local lumber shops. Molding Plan utilizes plentiful resources of an age-old place in Taipei City as well as gathering people’s attentions to the traditional woodworking industry.”

Stackable Pine Blocks Make Modular Furniture Designs Fun

Posted on January 29, 2016 by Jeff Easterling

Like a toy specifically made for adults, this interactive set of modular pine blocks lets you create display compositions specifically tailored to your space. The ROOM Collection by Erik Olovsson & Kyuhyung Cho consists of a series of square and rectangular wooden components with cut-outs in a variety of shapes. You simply stack them however you like, filling the niches with anything from books to bottles of wine.

This unique approach to shelving eliminates the fixed nature of bookshelves, not only making it easy to create a storage system that fits whatever available space you might have in a room, but also turning you into a designer yourself. You become a curator of your own objects, finding ways to perfectly frame everything you want to show off.

Even ordinary things like tea cups, writing implements, shoes and cameras become art when they’re placed within one of these oval, hexagonal or house-shaped niches. The set is a cool, modern twist on more conventional pine furniture.

“When it comes to furniture, people are used to placing an object within a square space,” say the designers. “While it is common to use a square form to arrange an object, Erik and Kyuhyung were interested in diversifying the relationship between object and space to create furniture as rooms for objects. The focus was to explore the mix-and-match quality of the ensemble in our spaces from a graphical approach.”

Softer Than You’d Think: Seat Cushions Made of Precision-Cut Pine

Posted on January 5, 2016 by Jeff Easterling

pine seat cushions 1

How do you make a solid block of wood into a comfortable cushion that adapts its shape to the user? Apply a precision cutting system that adds movement and an unexpected give. The secret to the Nikola cushion by Aviv Shany is a cutting method called Kinetica.

pine seat cushions 2 pine seat cushions 3

The cushion itself is made of pine sheets, joined with invisible bars so they look like a single piece. Once assembled, the wooden mass is carved into an ergonomic cushion shape before being sliced vertically and horizontally, encouraging the wood to shift and move under a user’s weight.

pine seat cushions 4 pine seat cushions 5

“Kinetic experiments with perception by creating objects that transgress expectations, which surprises people and forces them to cognitively engage with the pieces. Wooden objects are usually associated with qualities such as strength and constancy but Kinetica aims to challenge these preconceptions. The cuts reduce the previously static mass and at the same time transforms it by adding movement and dynamism.”

Marbelous Wood: Pine Flooring Gets Fresh with Artistic Dye Process

Posted on January 4, 2016 by Jeff Easterling

Think you know all there is to know about staining wood? You might want to reconsider that notion after taking a look at this incredible marbling process perfected by artist Pernille Snedker Hansen in a series she calls ‘Marbelous Wood.’ Repurposing an old marbling technique, the artist gives natural wood a unique ornamentation that’s different on each and every plank, so the possibilities for the final design are virtually endless.

The designs are created slowly, drop by drop, following the growth rings on the wood, putting the focus on the natural patterns created by nature as the trees grow. According to the artist’s website, “Pernille Sneaker Hansen has combined the traditions of marbling from the bookbinding profession with the traditional Scandinavian pinewood floor, creating a wooden floor that forms a never-ending array of details and color combinations at one’s feet.”

It’s fun to imagine putting these custom-painted boards together like puzzle pieces, whether attempting to match them up or deliberately flip the motifs for a visually dynamic result. Snedker is currently taking commissions to install these artistic flooring surfaces, and can do them on wall paneling, too.

This Wooden Structure Has a Lower Carbon Footprint Than an iPhone 6

Posted on June 29, 2015 by Jeff Easterling

How can an architectural wooden structure that towers above the average person have a smaller carbon footprint than a gadget that fits into the palm of your hand? It’s all in the materials. An installation entitled ‘The Invisible Store of Happiness’ by designer Sebastian Cox and sculptor Laura Ellen Bacon stands as an example of the sustainability of wood, as well as its beauty and versatility, with ribbon-like sections of wood bent to create an intricate design within the structure’s core.

Standing beneath the 16th century arch of St. John’s Gate in London, the structure is made of steam-bent and twisted lengths of wood. Cox, who specializes in designing and building wooden furniture using traditional techniques, and Bacon, known for large site-specific sculptures made of woven and knotted wood, brought their complementary skills together to build a single structure. They got the idea after researching how much carbon is expended in the manufacture of Apple’s iPhone 6.

“We set ourselves the challenge of making the whole piece for less carbon than an iPhone 6,” Cox told Dezeen. “Every element in the making process was considered in the context of how it would affect the end figure of 100 kilograms of CO2.”

The structure ended up standing 9.2 feet tall, and acts as a metaphorical store of carbon, who recorded every kilogram of CO2 that was expended on the project during its manufacture and transport. Concentric layers of cherry and maple wood are set within the frame, attached by 380 clueless mortise and tenon joints. Each piece of wood was soaked in water overnight and then steamed at a very high temperature to make it pliable before being bent around formers and clamped in place as it cooled.

It’s a beautiful testament to the sustainability of wood, not to mention the lasting beauty and quality of time-honored wood joinery techniques.