Furniture For Keeps 2024
Exploring sustainability through furniture fabrication
SUSTAINABLE SOURCING
When you think landscape architecture the first thing that comes to your mind is probably not furniture making. After all, a landscape architect certainly wouldn't be in charge of making the furniture they put in their landscapes. So why does UW Landscape Architecture (UW//LA) offer a studio in furniture making?
The answer is simple: materiality. By building their own furniture, students get hands on experience working with raw materials. Moving and shaping these materials with their hands gives them a more intimate understanding of the properties these materials possess, a concept that landscape architects can sometimes be removed from.
Wood is the central material of study in furniture studio, and this year, UW//LA is continuing to source wood right here on UW's campus. In collaboration with UW facilities, the Fall 2024 Furniture studio utilized recycled wood obtained from the Salvaged Wood Program to create their furniture pieces.
Not only does this reduce the environmental footprint of furniture making, but also the financial price tag of buying virgin lumber. Students get more freedom to move, shape, and fabricate their pieces in their fashion because of the diversity and reduction in cost salvaged materials provides. Read more below to learn how students went from sourcing, to sequencing, to producing their furniture pieces. *
THE SOURCES
From Parrington Lawn to the Intellectual House, the UW salvage wood program sources their lumber from across the Seattle Campus. We invite you to take a journey below to discover the species and origin of lumber used in the furniture studio.*
*Adapted from "Furniture For Keeps" written by Joanna Chen, published March 12, 2024 https://storymaps.arcgis.com/stories/798c2ea7a3594b60a929bf3242148b86
SEQUENCING FABRICATION
Furniture making is a highly technical craft that can take years or decades to refine. From original concept design, to full scale mock-ups, to final fabrication, students in LARCH 501B spent just 12 short weeks bringing their ideas to life. Take a journey with us around the UW campus and through time during the 2024 Landscape Architecture Furniture Studio.
