Hasta La Ideas

German design graduate Tobias Nitsche has developed a chair with a seat and back moulded from lightweight 3D plywood.

The moulded parts are made from thin plywood veneer that can be shaped when heated into tight curves to stiffen the material so additional bracing is not required.

“More deformation means more stability in a chair with less material,” explains Tobias Nitsche, who designed the chair during his studies at ECAL in Lausanne.

Working with veneer specialists at German company, Danzer, he was able to explore forms that achieve the necessary rigidity without cracking the wood.

Four CNC-milled wooden blocks join the legs to the seat and the back is attached using wooden dowels so only one material is required to produce the chair.

“For me the challange was to find a language that translates the characteristics of the material into an object that is light, stable and visualises comfort,” says Nietsche.

The result is a chair suited to use in bars, restaurants or other venues where furniture is frequently moved around and stacked.

Earlier this week we featured the rerelease of Arne Jacobsen’s classic plywood Tongue chair, while Berlin’s Eric and Johnny Design Studio showed a plywood chair with a structure inspired by I-beams at this year’s imm Cologne.

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Here’s a short description from the designer:

Boss is a plywood chair that combines traditional woodworking techniques with the use of 3d plywood.

I worked in cooperation with the German company Danzer who is producing the material. Using their technology gives the chance to construct a plywood chair with a more radical curvature.

The thin plywood parts are stiffened by their three dimensional moulding. Four rods complete the construction.

Like that I designed a chair that is made only from wood and is at the same time light and stable. It’s visual language has never been seen in wood before.

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Tobias Nitsche appeared first on Dezeen.

Unfinished concrete is combined with exposed plywood in this Tokyo apartment renovated by Japanese architecture firm TANK (+ slideshow)

TANK wanted to create a more spacious and flexible layout in the compact Japanese apartment, which was previously divided by a narrow corridor into various cramped rooms.

“I considered that the room should have flexibility and the tenant can arrange it as she likes,” explains the designer.

The team began by making the bathroom much larger and inserting sliding doors on both sides, enabling an extra route between the bedroom and the hallway.

The narrow entrance hall is designed as a “Doma” – a traditional Japanese entranceway – with a bare concrete floor that contrasts with the raised wooden flooring of the living area.

An exposed larch frame extends out beneath a raw concrete ceiling, while vertical batons combine with plywood sheets to form a screen dividing the bedroom from the living area.

The bedroom and adjacent closet are doorless, with walls and ceilings designed to look deliberately incomplete.

“There are no doors for the bedroom or walk-in closet,” explains TANK. “The walls and ceiling have an unfinished look, I leave it to the tenant’s taste as to how to utilise these rooms.”

A clear glass lampshade houses a bare bulb that descends from the ceiling in the bedroom, casting long shadows from the wooden frame.

Other projects we’ve featured by TANK on Dezeen include an apartment with floors and ceilings covered in the same boards and a Tokyo apartment with removable patches of carpet to be used as flip flops.

See more Japanese houses on Dezeen, or see our Pinterest board filled with Japanese residences.

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by TANK appeared first on Dezeen.

An open fire welcomes visitors to this egg-shaped hut built by Danish studio SHJWorks on the edge of a Copenhagen park (+ slideshow).

SHJWorks, led by architect Simon Hjermind Jensen, built Fire Shelter 01 on a patch of wild land called Sydhavstippen in the southwest corner of the Danish capital.

The structure stands nearly five metres tall and has a hole in the top to let in light and let out smoke, plus two openings at the bottom for access.

The hut was constructed by bolting sheets of flexible plywood together through CNC-cut strips of white polycarbonate, which were inspired by seams in clothing.

The thin polycarbonate roof allows light to penetrate during the day, while at night it glows with light from the fire.

Visitors to the hut can take a seat on the long bench inside while tending the open fire.

Formerly a dumping ground for building materials, Sydhavstippen is now open to the public as a park and wildlife habitat.

“Walking around in the area is just amazing,” said Hjermid Jensen. “The ‘wild’ appearance of the nature on top of the building materials, which are visible in some places, makes you think of a ‘post-apocalyptic’ nature.”

Above: photograph by Christian Bøcker Sørensen

Hjermid Jensen did not have explicit permission to build the hut on the site. “The shelter is meant as a gift for the area and for those who wish to use it,” he explained, adding that he hopes it will remain in place for at least a year.

We recently featured a similar temporary hut in Kyoto made in tribute to a tiny 800-year-old dwelling.

Other projects in Copenhagen we’ve published recently include proposals for a series of artificial islands in the city’s harbour and an aquarium shaped like a whirlpool.

See all pavilions »
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Photographs are by Simon Hjermid Jensen except where stated.

Here’s some more information from the architects:

Fire Shelter: 01 is a personal project located at Sydhavnstippen in Copenhagen. The starting point for the design emerged from a fascination with the place. It’s a temporary project and a design experiment that wishes to celebrate the place. The project has public access and it establishes experiences of spatial and social character. In the creation of it, nobody has been asked for advice, neither has it been possible for anyone to give his or her opinion. It is simply thought of as a gift.

You can reach the location at Sydhavnstippen after a 20-minute bike ride from central Copenhagen. Sydhavnstippen was landfilled with building materials between 1945 and 1973. Before that it was a seabed. Since the landfill plants, bushes and trees have taken over the area, today it’s a habitat for a variety of animals. Walking around in the area is just amazing. The ‘wild’ appearance of the nature on top of the building materials, which are visible in some places, makes you think of a ‘post-apocalyptic’ nature. The often deserted area amplifies this.

The shelter takes inspiration from the architecture of ethnic and nomadic people. The shelter consists of one shape stretching for the sky. It has one hole in the top and two openings at the bottom. Plywood and polycarbonate are the main materials and all the different parts are fabricated using CNC technology. It is 4.7m tall and haves a diameter at ground level at 3.8m. The structural element of the shelter is the 2-9mm thick walls. The walls consist of thin and bendable shells which are tightened together with bolts and a piece of 2mm thick polycarbonate.

The bottom of the shelter is made of plywood and inside is a fire place surrounded by a bench. The bench is filled with building materials found on the site. This ballast secures the shelter to the ground without any kind of digging for foundations. The upper part of the shelter is in white transparent polycarbonate. The transparent ability allows daylight during the day, and after dusk the light from the fire will shine through the polycarbonate. This way the shelter brings back memories of old times lighthouses.

Besides being a design experiment, which tests the possibilities and structural solutions that digital fabrication is capable of giving, the shelter is meant as a gift for the area and for those who wish to use it. It’s about being in the company of good friends, in a fantastic place, around a fire during the dark time of the year. If bureaucracy had been taken into account, the project probably wouldn’t have happened. The wish to act independently was the desire to create a unique and specific project without being subject to any kind of compromises.

The shelter was designed, produced and paid for by the firm SHJWORKS. The assembly job, done without the use of ladders, was made possible assisted by Christian Bøcker Sørensen and others. Hopefully the shelter can stand for a year. SHJWORKS has a great respect for the value of the area, and we don’t think we jeopardise any of these values realising this project. The shelter is a temporary project and the day it’s gone it will leave no traces.

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SHJWorks appeared first on Dezeen.

These days, everyone seems to have a DSLR and a point-and-shoot, or at least a camera embedded in the smartphone in their pocket. What most of us don’t have are a C-type printer, glossy paper and mounting materials—not to mention the skill, know-how and motivation to get our Instagram…

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Industrial designer Benjamin Hubert‘s latest chair features a T-shirt-shaped piece of plywood curled smoothly into its solid ash frame.

Tabs at the corners of the plywood fit into recesses in the solid wood components to make the surfaces level, rather than just attaching on top of them.

“The principle is about the ply integrating with the solid timber, which is different to how most ply chairs work, where you can see a very divorced relationship between them,” Hubert told Dezeen.

The simple frame crosses beneath the seat to join the front and back legs but incorporates a complex CNC-cut twist to meet the slanted back.

Hubert unveiled the piece at the designjunction exhibition in a former postal sorting office during the London Design Festival.

It was created in collaboration with Portuguese manufacturer De La Espada, who last year invited Hubert to design his first complete collection.

This year De La Espada gave him a large stand at designjunction where he created an installation with thousands of cuts and folds, and showed new work including the Tenda lamp made of underwear fabric that we featured earlier this week.

In his talk at Dezeen Live, a series of shows we presented at the 100% Design trade show that week, Hubert explained how the lamps are the first product he’s producing under his own brand. Read more in our earlier story here.

The London Design Festival took place from 14-23 September and you can see all our stories about it here, or listen to designers explain their projects in their own words with our audio guide here.

See all our stories about Benjamin Hubert »
See all our stories about De La Espada »
See all our stories about plywood »

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for De La Espada appeared first on Dezeen.