Formful Wood

Design and construct seating furniture from plywood! Based on the famous L-leg, which was designed by the architect Alvar Aalto for the Finnish furniture company Artek, an experimental study project investigated the potential and design possibilities of glued and bent wood. In close cooperation with Artek, 28 students of architecture at the ETH Zurich, and students of object design at the Lucerne University of Applied Sciences and Arts, not only turned the material on its head, but also questioned the sensuous qualities of the objects, their construction as an architectural place and sitting as a social event. The volume Formful Wood. Explorative Furniture presents the surprising and unknown aspects of a well-known material, illuminates the respective creation process, and reflects on its context in a variety of essays. Contributions to the volume were made by Nicolai de Gier, Florian Hauswirth, Sebastian Kraft, Mario Rinke, Christoph Schindler and Alessandro Oreste Tellini.