Digital Craft: Timber Technology

Digital Craft: Timber Technology was a research and development project supported by Arts Council England Developing Your Creative Practice project. The fund supports creative practitioners thinking of taking their practice to the next stage to research, have time to create new work, travel, training, develop ideas, network or find mentoring. Edmond was awarded a Developing Your Creative Practice grant to enable time and space during 2021 to research, experiment and enhance his architecture practice within the visual arts by exploring timber techniques and digital crafts to create architectural artworks.

The grant enabled Edmond to undertake an initial online workshop in steam bending a wooden lampshade. This was followed by a three day professional training course in steam wood bending techniques at the Charlie Whinney Studio in Cumbria. During the professional course he learnt traditional tools and processes for bending timber materials on a large scale and worked in collaboration with a fellow workshop participant to create a steam bent chair.

The steam bending practice was complimented by additional research into the use of digital technologies for folding birch plywood materials. This involved drawing living hinges using digital architectural software to fabricate and cut plywood patterns that could be manipulated into folded forms using laser cutting technology and hand crafts.

Image credits

DIGITAL CRAFT: DIGITAL TECHNOLOGY, 2021, Cabinet of Curiosity Studio, Research and Development

Photos: Cabinet of Curiosity Studio

DIGITAL CRAFT: DIGITAL TECHNOLOGY: CABINET OF CURIOSITY STUDIO
Arts Council England Developing Your Creative Practice