Tuesday 14 August 2018

At First,

I thought I was looking at,


 a huge woven basket, 

 but I was not, Brooklyn-based furniture designer and sculptor Matthias Pliessnig

 was in 2006 studying wooden boat building techniques at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, when he realized that by flipping his boat-inspired creations over, he could use the hollow form as a sturdy bench,

 a great example of how one technique can be used in other applications,

by twisting benches by steam-bending hardwood he can create twisting sensuous benches, once he has designed his works using Rhinoceros 3-D software, Pliessnig places a strips of wood into a tube filled with hot steam, after ten minutes the wood is malleable enough to bend into his desired shape, but only for about 30 seconds and clamped into it's new shape, in eight hours, the wood is fully hardened, and back to its original strength,

You can see more of the designer’s undulating furniture on his Instagram, what a great crossover of 
techniques from boat building to furniture.


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