Formful Wood

Design and construct seating furniture from plywood! Inspired by the famous L-leg 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, twenty-eight students of architecture at the ETH Zürich worked together with students of object design at the Lucerne University of Applied Sciences and Arts to not only turn this material on its head but also question the sensuous qualities of these 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 processes, and reflects on its context in diverse essays. With contributions by Nicolai de Gier, Florian Hauswirth, Sebastian Kraft, Mario Rinke, Christoph Schindler, and Alessandro Oreste Tellini