Take 10 furniture design students and give them each two cubic feet of US red oak to work with. The result? A startling array of creativity and inventiveness.
The project is the joint idea of the American Hardwood Export Council (AHEC), acclaimed furniture designer/maker Philip Koomen and the Rycotewood Furniture Centre at the City of Oxford College, where the students are in the second year of furniture design and make Foundation Degrees.
The brief is for each to create a piece of furniture featuring a storage aspect. Their interpretation of that, judging by early models and prototypes, couldn’t be more diverse.
They range from a knock-down, dowel and board shoe rack, with an inventive peg connection locking flat and round elements together, to a chest with organically elliptical drawers that slide on a dovetailed rail system.
Other radically contrasting concepts include a shoe or display cabinet, with a multi-coloured, woven red oak veneer shell, and a coffee table featuring slate sections and a miniature Japanese ‘Zen garden’ housed in a drawer beneath a glass screen.
Going by his occasionally frank comments in tutorials, project mentor Philip Koomen, does not dispense compliments lightly. But he’s clearly struck by the students’ groundwork. He has himself worked with AHEC, focusing particularly on lesser-used species, like American red oak and soft maple, to make the most of the hardwood forest resource, and he’s impressed with way the group has taken the red oak and interpreted it so differently. He also praises the technical standard of some of the prototypes, threatening to “borrow” some of their ideas himself.
But he also cautions that the students are only part way through the project, with hurdles yet to clear.
“The strength of this process it that it poses multiple challenges in one. Designing and making a piece of furniture that works aesthetically and technically is just part of it. The students also have to work to criteria and under constraints they may not have faced before. Firstly there’s the constant of having to use US red oak, which none have previously worked with – while they can use other materials, it has to comprise 80% of the finished article.
“They also face the strict limit on timber volume.”
One of the students, David Howson, acknowledged that the latter aspect was testing.
“Previously we’ve probably concentrated primarily on design, rather than the costings and so on, then worked out how much wood we’d need and just got on with it,” he said.
“This demands a different approach, which is no doubt very valuable in the real commercial world of manufacturing, focusing on getting the most out of the material.”
And the challenges continue, said Mr Koomen.
“Working with me and AHEC, with our commercial outlook, adds another edge to the project, making it very real and, perhaps, adding some gravitas.”
Furthermore, he explained, the students have to demonstrate design inspiration from architecture and art – and their chosen influences here are as varied as every other aspect of their approach; ranging from the architect Frank Gehry’s Marqués de Riscal Winery and Hotel in Spain, through 50s and 60s brutalist architecture, to Richard Slee, maker of surreal ceramics.
There is also a tight deadline. The students have 13 weeks from first setting eyes on the red oak to finishing their pieces ready for the mid-June Rycotewood college show, while also working on other projects. AHEC’s involvement in the project forms part of its efforts to broaden the range of US hardwood species specified and used in Europe. Red oak, is, of course, a particular focus, given that it comprises almost 20% of the American hardwood forest, has doubled in available volume in 50 years, and yet still seriously trails ubiquitous US white and European oak in popularity.
“Our goal, to contribute to a sustainable use of the forest, is to encourage European designers and makers to use all the species nature provides, not just the few in fashion,” said AHEC European director David Venables. “We’re particularly keen to involve students at the outset of their careers, through design competitions and mentoring. These are the market shapers of the future and it’s key to open their eyes to the merits, technical, aesthetic, and environmental, of this material.”
Another ingredient AHEC has added to the project mix is environmental life cycle assessment (LCA). AHEC commissioned environmental engineers thinkstep to collect data and build an LCA database for the key commercial US hardwood species, claimed to be the most comprehensive of its kind in the timber sector. This gives specifiers and end users a complete environmental footprint for their wood, from forest, through primary processing, to delivery anywhere in the world.
The Rycotewood students will be able to tap into this and then have to complete the LCA profile of their furniture by monitoring and recording materials and energy inputs, from sawn timber to finished article.
“This will not only teach them how to calculate the environmental impact of the pieces they create,” said Mr Venables. “It will demonstrate just how well the US hardwood resource performs in LCA.”
At the time of going to press, the students hadn’t started the production process, so were yet to get to grips with this science. But they were already thinking about it; for instance, proposing to get the machines they use power-rated and draw up a chart to record how long each is used to calculate energy consumption.
Sitting round a table with all the students on the verge of making their furniture, they were under no illusions about the demanding process ahead. But the clear consensus was that this was a worthwhile exercise.
The value of getting to know hardwood species “other than the usual ash, European and US white oak” was mentioned by several. As a stepping off point for the project, the students were given just a week to produce a small storage piece from a 1000mm x 200mm x 22mm piece of PAR red oak. This, said Andrew Joye, introduced them to the technical characteristics of the material, and how to work with them.
“I initially had problems with break out when planing, but overcame this by adapting the angle,” he said.
Emily Taylor took a similar line. “You soon learn you can’t rush it. You have to rout or groove 1mm at a time and once you understand its characteristics you can work with them.”
Lessons were quickly learned too about red oak’s soaking and bending performance, and its finishing properties, with fuming and even charring among techniques being considered for final pieces.
Daisy Brunsdon highlighted the multiple criteria of the project as a challenge, but a positive one.
“It’s an interesting approach taking into account sustainability and LCA and, at the same time, inspiration from art and architecture,” she said.
Learning about the environmental credentials of red oak and US hardwood generally was also an eye-opener.
Mr Joye added that the central importance of sustainability and LCA in the task had resonance in the real world. “We’re going to see these become increasingly significant considerations in manufacture in the future,” he said.
