Formful Wood. Explorative Furniture

Can there be a more enticing and challenging task for students, even if ultimately
not particularly complex, than to design, create—and yes—make with their own
hands “formful wood”—also known as stools, chairs and benches, even small
pieces of furniture—within an interdisciplinary study setting? Contemplations of
this nature have taken on current prominence, especially since the label “formful
wood” is a nod to the distinguished peculiarity of the designs of Alvar Aalto.
Courtesy of Artek, the furniture company that accompanied the course, Alvar Aalto’s
designs have been incorporated into our design semester. This is therefore an
experiment which was nurtured into reality at the Lucerne University of Art and
Design where it became embedded in the object design philosophy, as well as at
the Department of Architecture at ETH Zurich where it was incorporated into structural
design courses. Both institutions were very energized due to the successful
debut of the courses in 2015.
While the main aim of the object design course is to promote researchbased
design that appeals to the senses and provides responsible and compelling
solutions to challenges of today’s cultural and social environment, the professorship
of Structural Design at the Department of Architecture at ETH Zurich
places the focus on the recognition of interaction between internal forces and
forms of load-bearing elements and purposefully applies it to the architectural
design process. The insight that the concept of construction controls the distribution
of internal forces within broad boundaries is key to creative structural
design and makes possible in the first place the playful articulation of the tectonics
of bearing and joining.
With a focus on bending wood as a starting point, surprising design ideas
were uncovered, accompanied by corresponding prototypes built by the students.
Everything centered around construction, transformation and manipulation at the
intersection of design and art. The participants soon became aware that at the
beginning of the process there is a need to discover and acquire knowledge not only
of the method of construction itself, but also of many other aspects such as materiality,
flexibility, stability, functionality, identity and interaction with the user. Very
helpful in this regard was the ongoing examination of Artek’s philosophy, which,
modern manufacturing techniques notwithstanding, does not consider furniture
as an industrial artifact, but rather an expression of socio-philosophical concepts
and therefore an echo of its time.
The students’ exposure to artisan skills at the RAPLAB workshop at ETH
Zurich served as a vivid tool that greatly aided the introduction to and understanding
of principles of construction. What are the ways in which wood can be bent?
What are the options created by the layering of veneer? How can individual parts
be joined; how do they respond to gentle or vigorous touch? What is the effect of
space between parts? What, ultimately, is the relationship between force, material
and form? How can a concept be taken to its ultimate conclusion, developed
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