Wood is one of the most common building and industrial material that is portrayed as
a “natural” resource. Although its potential for reuse, renewal and biodegradability,
the wood chain today is far from being circular.
With billions of tons of unused wood waste, WoodenWood presents a material driven
design process for a prototypical chair that utilizes an all-natural wood waste material.
Composed of industrial sawdust and cellulose-based natural binders, this enables
100% biodegradability , can potentially replace petroleum based materials in design
applications, and can reduce large amounts of waste wood from agriculture, municipal
and industrial sites.
In order to address this challenge, traditional and digital crafts are integrated to
convert raw wood and wood waste towards a new end of life. Traditional fine
woodworking expression as a modular component is integrated with robotic
deposition of wood paste weaving. A customized computational design setup and
manufacturing workflow are developed to correlate the chair geometrical form, the
robotic printing toolpath, and material distribution properties with a clear aim to
achieve a circular design.