The Wallpaper ‘Office of the Future’ event in London at the end of March highlighted the blurring of lines between home and workspace with different office designs.
Working with the American Hardwood Export Council, architect Adam Khan and sculptor and fabricator Adam Kershaw developed a framework in natural, untreated and heat-treated US tulipwood to both segregate the different office interiors and lead visitors to the next.
"The project really fits in with our goal to highlight the design possibilities of American hardwoods, while at the same time telling a strong technical story," said AHEC European director David Venables. "The structure’s use of natural and darker heat-treated material demonstrates the aesthetics of tulipwood, which is commonly used as a painted carcasing timber, and also highlights our very promising work heat treating American species, which, in the case of tulipwood, renders an interior timber suitable for exterior use."
Robert Morgan of Morgan Timber, which supplied the tulipwood and US maple which was used in the structure’s flooring, was equally enthusiastic.
"It’s unusual to use tulipwood without painting, but the results are very striking," he said.
Meanwhile the "Well Proven Chair" nominated for the Design Museum Award features American ash legs, and a body moulded from resin and hardwood residue from the manufacturing process. This was one of the designs that came out of AHEC’s "Out of the Woods" project with the Royal College of Art and Benchmark Furniture, which challenged students to build life cycle analysis into chair designs that blended style and performance.
