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Brazilian designer Brunno Jahara of Jahara Studio has created a collection of furniture made using scrap wood.

Called Neorustica, discarded strips of wood have been painted in bright colours and joined together to form cabinets.

The collection also includes tables, desks and benches which have been painted white, with slithers slivers of the wood beneath showing through.

The cabinets and desks are finished on the inside with a laminate made of recycled PET bottles.

Jahara’s collection is an homage to Brazil’s rural traditions and culture, with the bright colours, and each piece has been named after a Rio de Janeiro shanty town.

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The following information is from the designer:

NEORUSTICA FURNITURE COLLECTION
JAHARA STUDIO Brazil

Brazilian designer Brunno Jahara has just finished a collection of furniture made out of scrap wood in Brazil, called Neorustica. It pays homage to the country’s rural background and has the strong colors of the brazilian culture.

This is a collection of 10 items that function as containers, tables and benches. Each piece is named after a shanty town or favela in Rio de Janeiro, which is Jahara’s hometown. The designer wants to highlight the living condition of people that moved from the countryside into big cities searching for a better life (i.e. improvised homes made of scrap).

Using these conceptual elements to develop the pieces, with regards to the materials used, he teamed up with a furniture factory which specializes in working with wood that is left over from construction sites or demolition.

This factory is now launching NDT BRAZIL, an international brand which is committed to working in a sustainable and design conscious way. Specially crafted out of rough wood, the slates are carefully painted in bright colors making every piece unique and full of character due to the natural texture of aged wood.

The result is bridging the distance between object and user, by inviting one to touch and feel the texture of the pieces. The pieces have names such as Vidigal, Rocinha, Dona Marta, Tuiuti, Caricó, Vila Canoa, Uribu and Pavão.

They are built with a feel of improvisation, with low tables and dining tables in two sizes, a vertical and a horizontal cabinet, a compact desk with a long drawer, a bench with a roof and a side table. The varnish chosen is non toxic and water based paints were used.

The inside of each container is made of a special laminate made out of recycled PET bottles. This laminate is both durable and easy to clean.
NDT BRAZIL will also produce another series of furniture by American designer Harry Allen and as well as their own collection designed by owner Ricardo Augusto, an architect from Bady Bassit, Brazil.

NDT will have their international launch at this year’s at the week of Miami Design/Basel and will happen the 29th November at the Ornare Showroom, also in joint venture with ViaLight that will show a new table lamp in aluminum from Brunno Jahara.

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Batucada collection by Jahara Studio	PLET Table by Reinier de Jong	More furniture on Dezeen

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Dutch designer Chris Kabel has created a circular bench made from one 10 metre-long wooden beam.

Kabel cut the long beam into trapezium-shaped pieces then fitted them back together to form a ring that retains the grain of the wood.

These pieces are held in place by a metal strap.

The bench is in use for an installation called Shared Space III in the communal space of the Witte de With Center for Contemporary Art and Tent in Rotterdam.

Here’s some more information from the designer:

What do you like most about the project?

That the bench really works. If you sit with three people or more in it, it automatically becomes a very intimate space where the outside world dissapears. You really feel embraced by the tree.

What was the original concept and how does it differ from the finished project?

For the Shared Space III I wanted to make a circular bench. I liked this shape because it creates two very different spaces. Facing outward of the circle you can be alone and anonymous. You can read a book or look at the passers by. But as soon as you step into the circle you become part of the atmosphere created by the people that are already in there. It’s a bit like sharing a bath in the sauna but then without the nakedness and the wetness… It also reminds me of my early school years where on mondays we would all sit with our little wooden chairs in a circle and talk about the things we did in the weekend.

And then I thought of how I would make it. Obviously, wood first came to mind but I wanted to do something unexpected with the wood. Normally to make a circular bench out of something straight, you cut it in shape and glue or screw it back together. This however destroys the continuity of the wood grain, which for me is the most characteristic feature of wood. So that gave me the idea of cutting the wood in small trapezium shaped pie pieces that, when put back togheter, would create a circle of three meters in diameter. The bench consists of a hundred of those pieces, held together by a metal strap (just like a wooden bathtub or a wooden barrel). It actually works in the same way as the stones in an arch in a wall. Another good thing is that you can disasemble the bench, load it on a pallet and tranport it very easily.

Did you have any difficulties during the design process or assembly?

Yes, it was very hard to find a piece of wood of this dimensions. To be true to the idea I really needed a wood beam of ten meters long. Also it needed to be dry enough to cut without cracking open or breaking too much. Because when wood is freshly cut it is very wet and when it starts to dry out, the outside dries out quicker than the inside and shrinks and thus cracks because the inside didn’t shrink yet. Luckily I found this kind of wood and also a fantastic woodworker who works a bit like a mad scientist, he invents his own machines and techniques. He is a specialist in impossible projects. He has also worked for the Chinese artist Ai Wei Wei, Ettore Sottsas and Ron Arad, which made me feel confident he knew what level of finish I desired.

Do you have any anecdotes/ funny stories that occurred during the design process?

First I wanted to make the bench in my own workshop out of a thinner but also 10m long wood plank attached to a metal frame, and with the wood pieces cut by waterjet and glued together completely in one piece. We almost started doing this when I realised myself the immense size this bench would have and how we would transport it. So I measured the doors of the building and found out that after being finished, the bench would never leave the building because the doors were too small. After this desillusion the answer to make the entire bench out of pieces cut one much wider and higher wood beam and later strapped together by a metal strap, proved much more natural and logical… So in the end I thank the architect of our building (which used to be a hat factory by the way, items that easily fit through any door) for not making the doors too big…

What would you like people to take away after seeing this project?

I hope that they will have shared something with a complete stranger in this wooden circle.

About the project itself:

What materials and techniques did you use?

Oregon pine beam of 10m/ 40cm /30cm, a little geometry, and a lot of cutting… the wood is finished with a matte transparent varnish

Where were the materials found?

The wood originally comes from Canada, where it has been lying in the river for a year to wash out the wood acids. Then it has been drying to the air for two years in the Netherlands.

How long will the space be occupied by your design?

A year or maybe longer

What do you expect the bench to look like after 6 months- a year?

The wood will become even better with age so I hope it will last a hundred times longer than that…

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Seam Chair and Bench by Chris Kabel	New work by Chris Kabel	More furniture stories on Dezeen

Venice Architecture Biennale 2010: this stepped wooden pavilion by Irish studio dePaor Architects is on show at the Venice Architecture Biennale.

Called 4am, a sheet of pleated linen covers the walls and ceiling of the scented softwood frame.

Visitors walk up the steps of the pavilion to a half landing, only to descend almost immediately.

The project was presented in the Palazzo delle Esposizioni in the Giardini of Venice.

The Venice Architecture Biennale continues until 21 November.

Photographs are by Alice Clancy.

See all our stories about Venice Architecture Biennale 2010 »

The following information is from the architects:

dePaor architects present a folly in pleated linen and lavendered softwood, called “4am”, in the Palazzo delle Esposizioni in the Giardini of Venice. The project constructs a liminal space, between two bespoke subject objects, as a domestic shadowplay.

‘From this point on I came to regard architecture as the instrument which permits the unfolding of a thing’ A. Rossi, ‘A scientific autobiography’

The square footprint casts the shadow of Adam’s house in Paradise. A square plan is an economical speculation beyond the vernacular, which is difficult to extend. The approach is either oblique or flat and dictates the site. A cut pyramid roof denies the gable and the small politics of front and back.

Reduced continuity between inside and outside multiplies the encounter between here and there. The tactic and strategy of servant and served plot the room plan. At the half landing, nothing happens.

’Transformed and displaced images, impressions, occurances which have moved me deeply (often without my knowing it), forms which I sense are closely associated with me, even though I am incapable of identifying them, which makes them all the more troubling to me.’ A. Giacometti, The Palace at 4 am

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Drawings are copyright dePaor Architects

4am is staged between hylo and hedra, a shade and a stone after Dürer’s Melancholia I of 1514. At 4am the air duct fouls the upholstered dogleg staircase, which ascends to descend at the fire escape of the Palace. The planed and lavendered 2” x 4” softwood cribbage is glued and screwed at 400 mm centres. Beneath the transoms, the pleated 600 thread count linen closets the lambswool treads of the house at 4am.

‘The wardrobe is filled with linen. There are even moonbeams which I can unfold.’ A. Breton, ‘Revolver aux cheveux blancs’

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credit list:
Title of the project: ’4am’
Technique: 2” x 4” planed, lavendered softwood, linen, sisal, limestone, glass
Name of studio: dePaor architects
based in: Dublin, Ireland
Name of principal: T. dePaor

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Contributors:
architecture: A. Hofheinz
construction: R. Cullen
linen: J. Shields, K. McQuade (Classic Curtains), J. Devlin, P. Maybury
scent: D. Cox
hedra: J. Ellis
hylo: S. Walker
sisal: T.C. Matthews

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hylo was blown at Berengo Studio, Murano
hedra was direct-carved in Dunbeakin, Co. Sligo, from Butler’s Grove limestone.
lavender was harvested at Kilmacanogue, Co. Wicklow by Fragrances of Ireland.
linen was provided by Kvadrat.

Supporters: Culture Ireland

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See also:

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