Project Information
I worked at a lumbar yard between high school and college and got a chance to see various building materials I had never seen before. I also had the time to really SEE some materials that were all too familiar, but usually ignored. Oriented Strand Board (OSB) is one such material. Most people wouldn't give it much of a thought but to me there is an inherent beauty to it. It reminds me of looking at a Jackson Pollock painting. If you look at it for a moment you can start to see these layers going back into space. It just seemed so interesting and such a shame that it gets covered up.
This got me thinking about how I could try to bring it to the foreground, make people see more possibility in it than just something to walk on or cover with shingles. A dinning table seemed the perfect direction to go. People would gather at it for a period of time and be forced to come into direct contact with it. A person would, by default see it while they used the table. And, in making it into a dinning table instead of a bench or stool, it elevates the nature of how it is used as to bring it into the realm of something reserved for special occasions.
As I worked on the project I started to discover some added benefits of working with OSB. Things like the lateral strength and torsional rigidity would prove useful especially when carving something down to such a small footprint (each leg is tapered down to a contact patch of less than 3 square inches). The compressed material made for a (mostly) void-free substrate. And the irregular pattern took on a marbled texture as it was carved and finished.
Aside form a few pieces made by fellow students that were spawned from my work, I haven't seen much of this material used in furniture -but I hope to see more.
This got me thinking about how I could try to bring it to the foreground, make people see more possibility in it than just something to walk on or cover with shingles. A dinning table seemed the perfect direction to go. People would gather at it for a period of time and be forced to come into direct contact with it. A person would, by default see it while they used the table. And, in making it into a dinning table instead of a bench or stool, it elevates the nature of how it is used as to bring it into the realm of something reserved for special occasions.
As I worked on the project I started to discover some added benefits of working with OSB. Things like the lateral strength and torsional rigidity would prove useful especially when carving something down to such a small footprint (each leg is tapered down to a contact patch of less than 3 square inches). The compressed material made for a (mostly) void-free substrate. And the irregular pattern took on a marbled texture as it was carved and finished.
Aside form a few pieces made by fellow students that were spawned from my work, I haven't seen much of this material used in furniture -but I hope to see more.