WoodenWood: a circular design and manufacturing process for wood waste

Research team: Arch. Avi Cohen, Yuval Berger, Yoav Dabas, Alon Nisan
Disrupt.Design Lab, Technion directed by Arch. Shany Barath

Wood is a common building and industrial material that is portrayed as a “natural” resource. Although its potential for reuse, renewal and biodegradability, the wood chain today is far from being circular.
WoodenWood is a prototypical material driven design process that addresses the wood waste problem through the development of seating elements as a case studymat.
Composed of wood waste in the form of raw wood, sawdust and cellulose-based natural binders, it suggests the potential to replace petroleum based materials in design applications and reduce large amounts of wood waste from agriculture, municipal and industrial sites.
Traditional fine woodworking expression as a modular component is integrated with robotic deposition of wood paste weaving. A customized computational design setup and manufacturing workflow are developed to correlate the geometrical form, the robotic printing toolpath, and material distribution properties with a clear aim to achieve a circular design process towards zero waste.