Looking Out Week 1

http://9gag.com/gag/aKz9p6O?ref=fb.s

Wood Sculpter Randal Rosenthal is all about creating illusions with wood. In this piece, he makes what looks like a cardboard box filled with cash out of a solid block of wood. It is projects like these that show the true malleability of wood and what can be created from a hand carving process.

Looking Out: William Aldrich

Final Wooden House, Sou Fujimoto Architects, 2008



Sou Fujimoto knew, as most architects do, that wood has a versatility that allows it to be used as almost any part of the house. It's shapes, sizes, and different types allow it to become almost anything man wants it to be. However, Fujimoto wanted to experiment with wood in a different way. Since it seems to be so multifaceted, he believed it would be possible to create an entire house from one form of wood: a 14" square piece of cedar.



In doing so, he reversed the idea of architecture an wood. By using wood without its versatility, the architecture itself has become versatile. Rather than allowing the design to influence the wood, the wood has created the design. Depending on where one is within the structure, a particular beam could be the ceiling, the floor, a seat, or a wall.



Spaces are not divided, but shared throughout. The wood becomes the structure, the shell, the furniture, and overall, it IS the architecture.

Horace Hou: Looking out week 1

This is a pavilion project located in Chicago's Lincoln Park Zoo designed by Studio Gang. The project is part of a larger plan that tries to rehabilitate a pond area in the zoo. This pavilion creates an area for people to congregate and allow for a space for educational programs. The design is based upon a tortoise shell and is covered by fiberglass pods which allow light in and protect the users from the weather. 

I find this project really interesting in that although wood is a very solid material and can seem very rigid, this project shows that wood can also be very versatile and bend and twist into such a curve. 

Yasmeen Almuhanna: Looking Out (week 1)

Probably the coolest furniture I've come across in a while, these stools/benches are made of whole trunks of wood incorporated with melted aluminum. The texture of the wood is retained during the process of first burning its surface when pouring molten aluminum on it. Then the trunks are sectioned into square forms, which in turn are connected to whatever size frame one would please. The result is a beautiful line of coffee tables, night stands, benches...ext.