Construction
The structure of the planters and seating is based of traditional banquette seating construction and includes the planters in the back of the seats.
This is the first technical drawing I did to get a sense of the shapes and dimensions of the space along with the separate parts to the overall section. However I feel that the section doesn't convey the materiality or construction materials that I have researched along the way. Further to this I feel that by just using generic building materials the design is not in keeping with my concept of a circular economy nor is it eco friendly.
Development
To develop this drawing further I considered the materials pallets and alternative building techniques that would align better to my circular economy theories. In particular I looked at materials that used food or agricultural waste to make furniture.
Inspiration
Designers Carolina Härdhand and Emeli Höcks created this seating range using food waste from commercial kitchens it combines oyster shells, paper, bone glue and potato starch to create a rigid strong material, while also remaining no-toxic and bio-degradable. They have recently been commissioned to create a range of furniture for a restaurant.
My Response
First Attempt
From my bio-material tests that I did previously I identified that the material I made from eggshells (Eggware) was very similar in its components to the example above and was really easy to cast to shapes as well as having a smooth finish to the outcome.
Second Attempt
When I repeated this process I fully ground the egg shells before creating the mixture not only was the result much smoother it also set into a firmer more robust material that would be comfortable to sit on.
Model Making
To explore whether the materials I have previously explored would be able to be cast to create the seating I created a section of the benches at scale 1:10. I used foam board to create a mould and then filled the mould with the wood-ash concrete that I previously made in my explorations of bio-materials. (while I used the wood-ash material for this experiment I think it would also be possible to achieve with the coffee and egg shell materials as well based of of what is most easily accessible as waste products.
Outcome
While the material successfully set to create a hard rigid bench the thinner sections that would create the trough for the planters and back of the seat where flimsy and collapsed once the side supports were removed from the mould.
Therefore I will look at a highbred approach to combining traditional timber construction with this cast biomaterial.
Combining Materials
This is where I started to think about how the materials would work together to create the seating. The Back of the seat was not supported due to the weakness in the moulded woodcrete.
So I removed the excess wood crete that was crumbling away and replaced the planter walls with wood and wooden beams like the construction used in the first technical drawing.
While this works in theory I think setting large amounts of this material would prove challenging so instead I propose that small amounts be used to reinforce and create the angles desired for the seating.
References
Comments