Get the next four copies of this fantastic magazine delivered directly to your door.
Always featuring numerous articles on a wide range of eco-building projects from all around the UK, most of which are written by the very people that designed or built them. It is the ideal read for architects, builders, developers, self builders and anyone interested in eco-building, including interested homeowners/clients.
|
|
|
Adventures of 13 Hardwood Chairs |
|
 
|
|
|
|
23 Jun 2012, 11:46 AM
|
Product design students at the Royal College of Art in London are to produce and exhibit chairs during the London Design Festival, in collaboration with the American Hardwood Export Council. Under the leadership of tutors Sebastian Wrong and Harry Richardson, the use of wood as a material and its Life Cycle impacts have been added to the Design Products curriculum.
|
The students have been set the challenge of designing a functional chair or seat in an American hardwood of their choice. The designs will be developed into working prototypes with the help of Benchmark, internationally renowned for its craftsmanship in wood and long-standing relationship with designer Terence Conran.
The American Hardwood Export Council (AHEC) is well known in the international design community for its creative promotion of hardwood, having worked with the likes of David Adjaye, Matteo Thun, Sou Fujimoto, Arup and Amanda Levete. But now its attention has turned to the potential stars of the future with a unique and ground-breaking project for students.
The Council will be introducing its Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) research to help the students produce detailed Life Cycle impacts for their designs, and understand the sustainability considerations involved in using harwood as a construction material.
Each chosen prototype will be environmentally profiled using an LCA modelling system specially developed for the furniture industry. The Council is in the process of producing the first-ever Environmental Product Declaration for American hardwood lumber and veneer; it is this data that will be used by the students to build a full “cradle-to-grave” impact for their designs.
According to Sebastian Wrong, the project “offers a pioneering opportunity for students to create designs within the context of a stark reality.” His co-tutor Harry Richardson added, “it is not only a case of designing a chair that will survive physically far in to the future, it is also to produce a chair whose design will remain relevant far in to the future.”
David Venables, AHEC’s European Director who developed the idea for the project with Sebastian Wrong, says: “We are so excited to be working with students from the RCA. We can’t wait to see new talent emerge and have an opportunity to show them what a great design material hardwood is. The fact they can also see and understand the full environmental impact of their design gives this collaboration extra relevance to today’s world and sets it apart from other student design projects.”
The American Hardwood Export Council (AHEC) is the leading international trade association for the US hardwood industry, representing the committed exporters among US hardwood companies and all the major US hardwood production trade associations. AHEC concentrates its efforts on providing architects, designers and end-users with technical information on the range of species, products and sources of supply.
www.americanhardwood.org
|
|
|
|
