Thesis Menashe - AA Design & Make

Steam Driven – The Architectural Power of Steam Bent Timber By: Omri Menashe Submitted to the Architectural Association School of Architecture On January 31st. 2014

Abstract: The following thesis argues that steam-bending timber is a viable technique for building an efficient and elegant building. It is a technique that best operates at human scale because it relies upon an evolving tactile awareness of the material and its behavior. The Timber Seasoning Shelter at Hooke Park, the Architectural Association’s woodland campus, exemplifies this technique in praxis. It is an investigation of material characteristics, and an expression of steam-bending methods used for solving structural challenges that result in an architectural system of production. In this project, the building’s fabrication, and the processes of making it, developed in co-dependence with one another. The production team designed and made the tools to create the finished object. This building will exemplify the successes, adversities, and opportunities contained within this technique. The thesis will consider the relationship that the technique has to the field of architecture. The first section of the thesis contextualizes the technique historically by examining the bending practices of Michael Thonet, and proposes a legitimate connection between past technique and present method. In the second section it will examine alternative-bending techniques used by Charles and Ray Eames in order to illustrate the material efficiency advantage of steaming solid timber as opposed to glue laminated ply. Throughout the thesis the technical aspects of the steam bending method will be discussed alongside a discussion on computation, systems design, and the production of machines for the making of architecture. By presenting the Timber Seasoning Shelter within a framework of history and innovation, I intend to defend that constructing a building in this method will produce a result that is elegant, simple, and architecturally meaningful.

Table of Contents Introduction: Machines for Making Architecture

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1. Michael Thonet: A Pioneer of Modern Making

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2. Charles and Ray Eames: Modernism’s Dynamic Makers

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3. Making: Production of the Timber Seasoning Shelter

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3.1 Steaming: Transforming the Intractable into the Plastic

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3.2 Bending: The Physical Transformation of Form

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3.2.1 Bending Experiments 22 3.2.2 Production Bending 26

4. Glue Lamination: An Alternative to Solid Bending

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5. The Timber Seasoning Shelter: A Product of Experimental Making

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Bibliography 38

Table of Figures 1. Le Corbusier’s studio, rue Nungesser-et-Coli, Paris, 1931-1934.

View of the interior. Photograph by Richard Pare, 2012.

2. Archaic wood bending machine relying on weights and balances.

3. Timber Seasoning Shelter team bending top chord member.

Photo: Glen Stellmacher. 2013 4. Thonet’s veneer bending jigs. Using these tools Thonet would layer multiple thin

strips of wood cut along the grain. Once boiled in hot glue Thonet would press

them together creating intricate bent forms. The thin laminae enabled him to

achieve very complex delicate curvatures. (Vegesack 1996) 5. Thonet’s bending forms and metal strap. The backrest and legs of Chair No. 14.

Armrests for model no. 6009. (Vegesack 1996) 6. Thonet’s labourer’s hand bending the backrest of Chair No. 14. (Gleiniger 1998) 7. Michael Thonet. Boppard Arm Chair, bent laminated veneer (1836 - 1842).

(Vegesack 1996) 8. Michael Thonet. Chair No. 14 (1859 - 60) (Vegesack 1996) 9. Michael Thonet. Chair No. 14 Various bending forms for producing solid

bentwood components. (1859 - 60) (Vegesack 1996 10. The Kazam! machine. In the studio of Charles and Ray Eames. Venice Beach

California. (Ngo 2003) 11. Clockwise Top Left. Kaiser’s abstract bentwood sculpture, ply layers awaiting

fabrication, and Plywood Leg Splint. (Ngo 2003) 12. The Timber Seasoning Shelter – Hooke Park. Architectural Association School of

Architecture. Photo: Valarie Bennett 2013 13. Adjustable Chair Jig. Charles and Ray Eames. 1945. Library of Congress.

http://www.loc.gov/exhibits/eames/images/uc9685.jpg Retrieved: Tuesday

December 3rd. 2013 – 10:00 14. Ray Eames reclining in a prototype lounge chair - 1945. (Ngo 2003) 15. Two graphs showing the effects of steaming on the stress/strain relationship of

European Beech in tension and compression. (Stevens 2006) 16.The position of the neutral axis after steaming treatment. (Stevens 2006) 17. Torn fibers due to tension failure on convex face.

(Stevens 2006) 18. Buckling due to compression failure on concave face. (Stevens 2006) 19.The Timber Seasoning Shelter – Wood burning steam stove and steam box.

Charlie Corry-Wright and Omri Menashe.

20, 21, 22. Thonet Steam bent bicycle. Andy Martin Studio 2012. http://www.andymartinstudio.com/edition-commission/Thonet-bike/

Retrieved: Tuesday December 3rd. 2013 - 10:00 23.Detail of steam-bent Ash-wood chair. LociMake - Students, Luke Olsen, and Jim Tory.

24. Experimental prototype steam-bent Ash chairs Ash wood chairs. LociMake

Students, Luke Olsen, and Jim Tory.

25. The progressive bending sequence of the components of the Timber Seasoning

Shelter – each member was uniquely bent into a specific geometry.

Omri Menashe.

26. Positive - Negative Bending forms. (Stevens 2006) 27. Early single point pneumatic bending experiments. Omri Menashe

28. Second phase array bending using additional pneumatics to distribute the forces

required to achieve successful bends. Omri Menashe 29. The array bending illustrated here represents the system for producing fixed

curvature planar steam-bent components. Omri Menashe 30. Production bending machine alignment of pneumatic arrays and timber.

Omri Menashe 31. The difference between the fixed curvature bending machine and the variable

curvature bending machine. Omri Menashe 32. Projection system operation of the gantry for adjustment and calibration.

Omri Menashe 33. Calibrating the bending machine. Omri Menashe 34. The Crystal Palace London, United Kingdom. 1851 - Joseph Paxton. (http://www.hdwallpaperstop.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/12/Widescreen- Crystal-Palace-Wallpaper-of-High-Resolution.jpg)

Retrieved: Monday January 20th. 2014 – 00:24 35. The Timber Seasoning Shelter – Hooke Park. Architectural Association School of

Architecture. Photo: Valarie Bennett 2013 36. Glue laminating the Timber Seasoning Shelter edge beam. 2013

Photo - Glen Stellmacher.

37. Sequence of shaped pieces used to create the strong-axis of curvature in the

doubly-curved Timber Seasoning Shelter edge beam. - Glen Stellmacher.

38. The Timber Seasoning Shelter – Hooke Park. Architectural Association School of

Architecture. Photo: Valarie Bennett 2013

Introduction: Machines for Making Architecture.

The expansion of the field of architecture has continuously relied upon innovative thinkers and makers who designed or constructed machines to enable architectural production. Using new techniques and developing new tools these artist architects influenced production culture by developing architectures that go beyond their specific moment of origin –– architectures impacted by the machines they made and used to achieve their conceptions. Those same thinkers understood that new developments depended upon old ones –– that new techniques were best founded upon existing strategies then refined to push the boundaries of making even further. By attempting to solve specific problems, such as the complexity of a joint, the mass production of a wartime leg splint, or the fabrication of a bentwood chair, these makers revealed a method of making that united designer and conception. Making architecture is a complicated endeavor, the machines for making it are the foundations upon which that architecture is made real, and they are the connection between maker and fabrication.

To examine and reveal the relationship between architecture and the machines that make it possible, this thesis will primarily focus on the steaming and bending tools produced for the fabrication of the Timber Seasoning Shelter at Hooke Park. In addition, it aims to explore the influence and role that project specific tools of production can have on architecture. In order to achieve this it will begin by closely considering the practices of Michael Thonet and Charles and Ray Eames as parallel practices that employed bespoke machines that broadened the architectural field culturally and economically. These makers developed what I will refer to as machines for making architecture. Josef Albers in an essay titled, Teaching Form through Practice, stated that, “[i]nstruction in professional techniques inhibits inventiveness” and that “pioneers have often started out as non-professionals.” 1 His statement alludes to the definition of what machines for making architecture can become. I argue that machines for making architecture are tools developed in the absence of technical knowledge.

They are the tools that emerge and follow from the very act of making. Albers also stated that “we give the students material to handle, and to ensure that they handle it thoroughly, whenever possible we limit the use of tools.” 2 Albers is referring to conventional tools that oppress their user by forcing them to employ conventional techniques. As I will attempt to show, machines for making architecture, are tools of invention and discovery that require a direct physical interaction with their operator to produce an architectural result. They are machines that develop upon the optimism of student-makers and craftsmen alike. Thonet and the Eameses developed these kinds of simple machines and this thesis will trace that lineage.

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Manfredo Tafuri and Francesco Dal Co in their Modern Architecture introduced architecture in this way: “architecture is Janus-faced.” On the one hand architecture is “the record of an increasing loss of identity” and on the other it is “a series of subjective efforts made to recover that lost identity.” 3 As historian-theorists Tafuri and Dal Co analyze this duality from a post-rationalist distanced position, in this thesis I propose to analyze architecture through the physical act of making. I propose that architecture is the integration of action. It is the loss of identity in the mundane details of machine, tool production and in the subjective efforts to regain the initial design vision in the construction of the building itself. Tafuri and Dal Co are correct. Architecture is two faced. It is not solely the resulting building on its own or the process of construction by itself. It is both simultaneously. It is the machines that make it possible and it is the process of constructing a building as a whole. The makers lose their identities’ in the mundane details of the machines for making architecture and then attempt to recover those identities’ by using the parts produced by those machines to make the resulting architectural object.

In the first chapter of this thesis titled Michael Thonet: A Pioneer of Modern Making I examine the relationship between maker and machine, between process and object. CharlesÉdouard Jeanneret, more often referred to as Le Corbusier, embraced Thonet’s steam bending practice. At the very beginning of the narrative of modern architecture Corbusier celebrated Thonet’s chairs as objects of a prosperous future.4 Thonet was an innovative maker who relentlessly experimented to the point of near financial ruin because of his commitment to material efficiency. Over the course of five decades he perfected techniques and significantly changed the character of industrial production. His designs reflect a fundamental drive towards elegant simplicity. Chair No. 14, which I will use as a case study, is the culmination of Thonet’s compelling practice and it reflects the tension between loss and recovery of identity. It is the epitome of component prefabrication in which the sum is greater than the individual parts.

Using this example, I will show how the Timber Seasoning Shelter is a sum architecture that is greater than its component parts.

In Chapter two titled: Charles and Ray Eames: Modernism’s Dynamic Makers, I briefly examine the practice of Charles and Ray Eames. Charles and Ray together were the cohesion of abstract artistic practice and engineered simplicity. Similarly to Thonet they produced architectural objects that found their identity through a process of physical experimentation and making. Their machines, used for bridging between the organic curvature of the body and the rigid structures that support it, traces a thread that reveals the importance of experimentation and refinement developed as a result of making machines that produce the information of architectural experiences. The fluid forms of Ray Kaiser’s bent wood sculptures are precursors to the bent wood chairs and contain the identity of architectural objects that in their production question the nature of space.5 2

Chapter three, Making: Fabrication of the Timber Seasoning Shelter, is divided into two sections. The first, Steaming: Transforming the Intractable into the Plastic, examines the steaming technique used to produce the components of the Timber Seasoning Shelter. It contains technical facts such as timing and choice of species. 6 It also chronicles the method of making the steaming stove and steam boxes two very simple yet vital tools that were critical for achieving a successful completion of the project. The second section titled, Bending: The physical Transformation of Form, examines the gradual development of the bending tools used to make the components of the Timber Seasoning Shelter. The bending machine developed in parallel to the steaming stove and so this section similarly explores the making of that device.

This section also considers the role of technology in the machine – the analog nature of the pneumatics and the simple achievements of that kind of system. The important role of the projector as a means of transferring information contained in the computer model onto the forming surface, the translation from the digital to the real.

Chapter four, Glue Lamination: An Alternative to Solid Bending, investigates a complementary method for making bent wood forms. It explores veneer lamination, a technique used by both Thonet and the Eameses. 7 In this chapter I intend on explaining the process and the technical requirements of bending wood using laminae. This chapter considers lamination as an alternative to solid bending. Solid and laminated bending methods have advantages and disadvantages. The goal of this section is to briefly investigate those characteristics revealing the underlying reasoning of the edge beam construction. Although it relies most heavily on the solid bending method, the Timber Seasoning Shelter uses both techniques. This chapter is an opportunity to understand why that is so.

Finally, in the last chapter, The Timber Seasoning Shelter: A Product of Experimental Making, I conclude that constructing buildings using experimental methods is the most effective way to challenge notions of what is architecturally possible. The Timber Seasoning Shelter is a specific building on a specific site, but its value lies not in its specificity but rather in the optimism that it creates as an experimental building method. In this conclusion, I bring to light some speculations about the future of the steam-bending technique and the opportunities opened up by this experiment. The arrangement of components is limitless, provided one understands the system and its limitations. In this way the Timber Seasoning Shelter is similar to Joseph Paxton’s crystal palace of 1851, which Kenneth Frampton describes in his third chapter of Modern Architecture: a critical history: “The crystal palace was not so much a particular form as it was a building process made manifest as a total system, from its initial conception, fabrication and trans-shipment, to its final erection and dismantling. Like the railway buildings, to which it was related, it was a highly flexible kit of parts.” 8

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Notes –– Introduction: Machines for Making Architecture.

1 Josef Albers, “Teaching Form through Practice.” AA Files 67. (The Architectural

Association School of Architecture, London United Kingdom.) 2013: p 130 - 131.

2 Ibid. p 130.

3 Manfredo Tafuri, and Francesco DalCo. Modern Architecture /1. Translated by Robert

Erich Wolf. Vol. 1. 2 vols. (New York, New York: Electa/Rizzoli,) 1986: p 7.

4 Siegfried Giedion, Mechanization Takes Command: A Contribution to Anonymous History. (W. W. Norton & Company) June 1969 : p 490 - 491.

5 Donald Albrecht, [et.al]. The Works of Charles and Ray Eames: A legacy of Invention.

Ed. Donald Albrecht. (Harry N. Abrams in association with the Library of Congress.

NewYork, New York.) 1997 : p 60.

6 W.C. Stevens, and N. Turner. Solid and Laminated Wood Bending. Forest Products

Research Laboratory, (Fredoina Books. Amsterdam, The Netherlands, Reprint

from 1952 edition.) 2006 : p 1 - 34.

7 Ibid. p 35 - 57.

8 Kenneth, Frampton. Modern Architecture: A Critical History. (Third. New York, New

York: Thames & Hudson.) 1992 : p 34.

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Michael Thonet: A Pioneer of Modern Making

“Innovation can be understood as a novel re-reading and an exploitation of an existing context.”

Oliver Neumann University of British Columbia Michael Thonet’s bending practice in the evolution of modernism has been undeniably influential. The early years of his practice were highly conventional and “he adhered to traditional techniques; he began experimenting with new procedures around 1830.” 1The new procedures employed by Thonet in the 1830’s are, at present, still germane. In the early design experiments of the Timber seasoning shelter our team employed a re-reading – albeit initially not a novel one, until further along in the process – of Thonet’s procedures. Thonet’s new procedures would go on to change the realities of architecture by becoming hallmarks of modernism. They became modern realities embraced and publicized most notably by the architect Le Corbusier. Le Corbusier’s decision to strategically deploy Thonet’s chairs in his Pavillon de L’Esprit Nouveau solidified the value of the bentwood chair and its modern industrial production process. The culmination of that work is most effectively illustrated by Tafuri and Dal Co, in reference to Le Corbusier’s contributions to L’Esprit Nouveau: “The antics of airplanes zooming between the skyscrapers are contemplated calmly by the citizens who are taking their ease on broad terraces furnished with delightful Thonet armchairs. The urban order presents itself as absolute synchrony: there is no initiation to the spectacle of modern life.”2 The unfamiliar speed of the airplane and the towering of massive buildings are eased by the comfort and delight of Thonet’s chairs. From Figure 1. Le Corbusier’s studio, rue Nungesser-et-Coli, Paris, 1931-1934. View of the interior. Photograph by the description above one can easily imagine Richard Pare, 2012. (Cohen 2013) Thonet’s chairs providing refuge, a refuge that Corbusier would choose even for his own studio. It embodies a simple pleasure, the essence of an architectural experience. A human experience solely possible due to the bending procedure.

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Thonet’s bentwood furniture method, defined by a search for simplicity and experimentation, originated in his Boppard workshop. His quest for a clear method was by no means a direct and simple one. It began as experimentation with lamination techniques.

Only after thirty years of experimentation did Thonet reach the personal recognition that solid timber bending was the only way to achieve his goals. It is valuable to distinguish here that regardless of how much Thonet tried to market his bentwood innovations as original inventions, he was far from the inventor of the technique. Like all innovators who rely on history, Thonet recontextualized techniques used archaically in shipbuilding. The English Windsor chair of the 17th century relied on bentwood parts and preceded Thonet’s Chair No. 14 by nearly three quarters of a century; even the Windsor chair itself was not the original use of bent wood, it only signifies the first recorded patent:

In fact, the earliest patent for bending wood, planks, and ships’ timbers was taken out by John Cumberland in 1720.

Another patent for a wood-bending process, taken out by John Vidler in 1794, refereed to: ‘Bending timber for circular work without injury to the grain’. This applied particularly to cabinet-makers (as well as shipwrights), as it used a series of ‘concaves and convexes’ (or formers) with weights and balances to bend the wood to shape. The processes used a type of former that was to be perfected by Thonet in the 1850s. 3

The machine described in the Vidler patents relied on weights and balances. Clive Edwards, the author of the above reference, suggests that Thonet goes on to prefect this approach but he does not reveal how Thonet achieved this.

I would argue that Thonet’s refinement to the method described by Edwards hinges on a new relationship fostered by Thonet. A relationship between maker, material, and bending machine.

The formers invented by Thonet depended on the craftsman’s direct manipulation of Figure 2. Archaic wood bending machine relying the material. In the machines for the Timber on weights and balances. (Edwards, Victorian Furniture: Technology and Design 1993) Seasoning Shelter, rather than using foreign weights and balances and large formers, our team relied on the power of discrete pneumatic cylinders. Each cylinder working in unison with its neighbors mimics the hand bending techniques perfected by Thonet but with greater force specific to the task.

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Using leverage and the physical effort of our bodies we too engaged with the machine directly as Thonet had done one hundred and fifty years prior. History is filled with re-readings. Thonet echoes the makers of the Windsor Chair and the Timber Seasoning Shelter team echoes Thonet.

Alexander von Vegesack, in his book, Thonet: Classic Furniture in Bent Wood and Tubular Steel, illustrates the early procedures used by Thonet in his Boppard factory. Vegesack describes the layered technique that Thonet found so appropriate for translating the forms of the Biedermeier style.

Figure 3. Timber Seasoning Shelter team bending top chord member. Photo: Glen Stellmacher. 2013

Figure 4. Thonet’s veneer bending jigs. Using these tools Thonet would layer multiple thin strips of wood cut along the grain. Once boiled in hot glue Thonet would press them together creating intricate bent forms. The thin laminae enabled him to achieve very complex delicate curvatures. (Vegesack 1996)

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Thonet started to experiment, he began by cutting wood along the grain into thin veneer strips, which he then boiled in glue and bent in wooden moulds. These very broad strips were cut lengthwise into several identical pieces. The chair he built out of these laminated veneer bundles were not only revolutionary in design but also documented Thonet’s constructive innovation, which effortlessly combined form and technique. These chairs, known as his ‘Boppard furniture’ founded Michael Thonet’s reputation; they were light but strong and stylistically in tune with the demands of his clientèle. 4

The Boppard Chairs exemplify Thonet’s innovation, development process, and scholarship of timber – but not the culmination of his work. That culmination, solid timber bending, would come as a result of his exposure to the climactic effects of transporting his furniture throughout the world. In the decades following his Boppard period Thonet’s work was exhibited at various significant exhibitions, most notably The Great Exhibition of 1851 hosted in London at Joseph Paxton’s Crystal Palace. The exposure Thonet received at these exhibitions led to the global demand of his products:

Although the press ridiculed all the Austrian exhibits, the Thonet pieces were highly acclaimed and were awarded a silver medal. Her Imperial Highness the Princess Mathilde bought up the entire Thonet stand and, more importantly, the first export contracts for South America were signed. This, however, brought its own unexpected problems: the glue of the laminated chairs dissolved in extreme humidity, so the wood began to split and lose its shape in the transport ships and the company was faced with a flood of complaints and the danger of losing the new market. 5

The splitting and veneer delamination due to humidity and environmental conditions required a fast and effective response from Thonet: “Thonet was again forced to re-think his wood bending technique and eventually decided that only the bending of solid wood would solve the problem.” 6 In the summer of 1856 Thonet applied for his third patent, a patent that would have deep ramifications for the future of furniture production and for the Timber Seasoning Shelter steam bending

Figure 5. Thonet’s bending forms and metal strap. The backrest and legs of Chair No. 14. Arm rests for model no. 6009. (Vegesack 1996)

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process. In that patent, Thonet “mentioned the assistance of a metal strip secured to the wood by screw clamps – the key to the simple but brilliant technique that laid the foundations for the industrial mass-production of bent wood furniture.” 7 The metal strap guaranteed Thonet’s success with solid bent wood by supporting the tension face of the timber. This enabled him to produce furniture at a new unprecedented rate because the unpredictable and irregular grain patterns of timber ceased to be contentious. The straps and metal formers were light, small, and cheap to produce, meaning that Thonet could employ many labourers to produce the discrete parts of his chairs. This breakdown of the elements of Chair No. 14 into an assembly line sequence meant that by the 1930’s a staggering 50 million units had been produced. 8 In parallel the Timber Seasoning Shelter team employed a similar metal strap, one that met the specific technical requirements of the re-curved shaped members. Our team also focused on crafting one component of the building at a time, as Thonet had done.

The addition of the metal strap to the bending process changes the relationship between the maker and his machine. Using Thonet’s strap system the labourer intimately handles the timber and hand bends it around the former.

This hands-on technique contrasted to the older weight and balance system in which the bending work is done by gravity, creates a connection between the process of bending and the resulting object. The maker Figure 6. Thonet’s labourer’s hand bending the backrest of Chair feels the timber intimately as it is No. 14. (Gleiniger 1998) wrapped around the form, knowing almost instantly whether or not the timber has split. Chair No. 14 epitomizes this approach.

It represents the culmination of Thonet’s bending work. The Timber Seasoning Shelter’s bending machine operated in a similar phenomenological manner. The operator places a piece of timber in the machine and quickly receives its feedback. Knowing almost immediately if the timber has split or failed. In this system, design becomes an intention that is highly considerate of material behavior. The maker gains knowledge of how to design for a particular material practice. The Timber Seasoning Shelter’s bending machine is an interactive machine precisely because it reveals the quality of the material at hand. The reduction of breakages, an example of acquired material knowledge and control, due to the use of the metal strap became critical for the production of the extreme bends of the Timber Seasoning Shelter. Material 9

understanding learned through the use of the bending machine is the highest resolution of designing and making. The cyclical method of drawing, modeling, testing, is resolved in the successful production of the components.

Thonet’s success, whether steamed bent or glued, was his ability to create a process of fabrication based on a learned material knowledge. He was a pioneer, not only because he created a system of mass production when such systems were only in their infancy, but also because he expanded his own understanding at the edges of furniture knowledge and therefore also the understanding of those around him. Using Chair No. 14 Thonet showed what was truly possible if one was willing to create the system of production in its totality – to develop the undeveloped.

Figure 7. Michael Thonet. Boppard Arm Chair, bent laminated veneer (1836 - 1842). (Vegesack 1996)

Figure 8. Michael Thonet. Chair No. 14 (1859 - 60)(Vegesack 1996)

Figure 9. Michael Thonet. Chair No. 14 Various bending forms for producing solid bentwood components.

(1859 - 60) (Vegesack 1996)

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Notes –– Michael Thonet: A Pioneer of Modern Making 1

2

3

4

5 6 7 8

Andrea Gleiniger. The Chair No. 14 by Michael Thonet. (Edited by Volker Fischer.

Frankfurt: Verlag Form.) 1998 : p 8.

Manfredo Tafuri, and Francesco DalCo. Modern Architecture /1. Translated by Robert Erich Wolf. Vol. 1. 2 vols. (New York, New York: Electa/Rizzoli,) 1986: p 120.

Clive D. Edwards. Victorian Furniture: Technology and Design. (Manchester: Manchester University Press) 1993: p 104.

Alexander von. Vegesack. Thonet: Classic Furniture in Bent Wood and Tubular Steel.

(Edited by Marie Clayton. London: Hazar Publishing) 1996: p 15.

Ibid. p 30.

Ibid. p. 30.

Ibid. p. 32.

Andrea Gleiniger. The Chair No. 14 by Michael Thonet. (Edited by Volker Fischer.

Frankfurt: Verlag Form.) 1998 : p 5.

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Charles and Ray Eames: Modernism’s Dynamic Makers Charles and Ray Eames occupy a specific place in the history of modern architecture. A dynamic pair who instilled an optimism about the role that design could take in the minds of modern Americans. They achieved this by creating an identity that extend beyond their designs, and which expanded into people’s minds through the use of film and other media. 1 Their importance to this thesis lies in their exemplary method of creation. At their core the Eameses were makers – designers who were willing to risk themselves both for what they believed was possible and for the sake of making novel objects that could solve fundamental problems. For Charles and Ray it was about solving problems that could change society for the better:

Charles and Ray’s philosophy of the educational role of everyday things led them to develop projects that would help people find beauty in the ordinary. “They really loved the world and how it looked,” recalled MIT Physicist Phillip Morrison and author Phyllis Morrison, his wife, “and they tried to understand why it looked that way and what it meant for people and what it meant to see beauty and to see form and to see the absence of those things and everything else and they just went around the world doing that for people – in building, and in text and in film…. That is what Charles and Ray did, they were always extending experience by bringing things together, by looking at them closely and all….

And to some extent they bridged the gap between science and art. 2

Figure 10. The Kazam! machine. In the studio of Charles and Ray Eames. Venice Beach California. (Ngo 2003)

The drive to change a culture’s relationship to the objects it consumes meant that Charles and Ray developed their own set of interpretive objects. These tools not only assisted and supported them in their work but also enabled the physical making of their conceived designs. The ‘Kazam Machine’ is the best example of this type of object. It was a tool designed in their small office for bending wood veneers.

Using absolutely basic materials the Eameses created simple processes, enabling the production of culturally significant objects:

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Immediately after settling in Los Angeles (in a newly built Richard Neutra¬–designed apartment building), the Eameses continued the experiments started by Charles Eames and Eero Saarinen at Cranbrook to produce a one-piece molded, compound-curve plywood chair shell. They built a device, dubbed the “Kazam! machine,” with two-by-four wood studs, flat plywood panels, and spare bicycle parts to house the plaster molded seat. Exposed electrical wire embedded on its surface provided the necessary heat to cure the glue. Veneer sheets were coated with glue then placed inside the plaster mold, and the homemade machine was closed with an inflatable bag wedged on top of the veneer plies. Once secured, the bag was inflated with a bicycle pump to produce the required pressure, and the heating wires were turned on. After about six hours of drying, the magic machine was opened, and the molded seat was removed. 3

The simple bentwood dining chairs exemplify the magic of the Kazam! Machine.

The veneers would go in flat and almost effortlessly after a short period of time emerge as curved forms. Elegant designs transformed into mass produced objects. It is not surprising that these objects became so popular. These chairs, basic and pure, became objects that people appreciated in their homes because they achieved multiple requisites. No longer large and bulky, like some upholstered chairs of the past, these modern chairs “absorbed vibrations and distributed stress... without the need for upholstery.” 4 Pictured below on the left is one of Ray Kaiser’s bent wood sculptures, the fluid folding form enabled the definition and questioning of the nature of space.

Figure 11. Clockwise Top Left. Kaiser’s abstract bentwood sculpture, ply layers awaiting fabrication, and Plywood Leg Splint. (Ngo 2003)

The plywood leg splint designed in 1941 is another strong example of a socially significant object that resulted from the experiments described above.

When the Eameses were introduced to a problem, as they had been during the war by an Army-physician acquaintance, they quickly began to wrestle with and prototype a solution.5 The solution for the splint parallels a solution used for the construction of the Timber Seasoning Shelter when 13

dealing with double curvature. In each layer of veneer for the plywood leg splint the Eameses produced a unique pattern. Once pressed and shaped the layers are bonded together and the overall form of the finished object consumes the unique pattern of each individual layer. Each incremental difference serves the fluidity of the whole. Similarly in the Timber Seasoning Shelter the global form absorbs each component’s unique shape:

The rigid specifications required by the U.S. Navy, added to the necessity of following the exact curves of the human leg, made the design process incredibly complex. A plaster cast was made from Charles’s leg, which was then slightly modified to make the mold usable for both left and right legs. With the help of a costume-designer friend, precise patterns of each veneer layer were made, with a slightly different cut-out for each individual layer to allow the compound shapes to be exactly molded. Serendipitously, the holes needed to relieve the molding pressure of the splint also conveniently provided the openings necessary for securing the leg with cloth bandages. 6

The similar character of the solution is not unexpected. Because it is based on geometric principles applicable at various scales the solutions have a definite appropriateness to their specific contexts.

In both cases it is an architectural solution precisely because it addresses the shaping of space. The

Figure 12. The Timber Seasoning Shelter – Hooke Park. Architectural Association School of Architecture.

Photo: Valarie Bennett 2013

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Figure 13. Adjustable Chair Jig. Charles and Ray Eames. Library of Congress. 1945 (http://www.loc.gov/exhibits/eames/images/

Figure 14. Ray Eames reclining in a prototype lounge chair 1945. (Ngo 2003)

uc9685.jpg) Retrieved: Tuesday December 3rd.

2013 – 10:00

cradling of space is achieved regardless of whether that space is a small void supporting and protecting a soldier’s wounded leg or it is a large volume sheltering timber from environmental conditions.

The Eameses deeply understood that simplicity was the key to making successful objects. In the image on right, Ray (Kaiser) Eames is reclining in a bent wood lounge chair that was an experimental precursor to the extremely popular Eames Lounge Chair and Ottoman. The connection between the image on the right and the simple but highly operative tool in the image on the left is that the information garnered from the first directly influences the experience of the other. The qualitative information, translated and processed from the measuring device to the finished object, demonstrates a type of architectural meaning.

A meaning whose value lies in reifying abstract information for the purpose of producing functional elegant and beautiful objects. The early bending machines developed to understand the limitations of the Beech material of the Timber Seasoning Shelter operated with a similar aim to learn as much about the material as possible. Using their simple machines the Eameses learned about bending in the body, and in parallel, our team learned about bending in timber.

Charles and Ray Eames were prolific designers. I have tried to show, using a small fraction of their work, the influence they had as designer-makers – for the Eameses, simplicity and experimentation were critical for making meaningful objects. Even though they did not build many buildings, the simplicity and elegance of their designs reached across the fields of graphic design, industrial design and architecture. The molded fiberglass chairs designed in the years following their bending experiments are but one example of the innovations that germinated from the small Venice Beach office and signify a progressive legacy of design experimentation.

15

Notes –– Charles and Ray Eames: Modernism’s Dynamic Makers 1

2

3

4

5

6

Dung Ngo and Eric Pfeiffer. Bent Ply: The Art of Plywood Furniture. (New York, New York: Princeton Architectural Press) 2003.

Donald Albrecht [et.al]. The Works of Charles and Ray Eames: A legacy of Invention. (Ed. Donald Albrecht. Harry N. Abrams in association with the Library of Congress. New York, New York.) 1997: p 36.

Dung Ngo and Eric Pfeiffer. Bent Ply: The Art of Plywood Furniture. (New York, New York: Princeton Architectural Press) 2003: p 53.

Wendy Kaplan and Glen Adamson and Bobbye Tigerman. California Design 1930 - 1965: Living In A Modern Way. (Edited by Wendy Kaplan. Cambridge, Mass: MIT Press) 2011: p 187.

Dung Ngo and Eric Pfeiffer. Bent Ply: The Art of Plywood Furniture. (New York, New York: Princeton Architectural Press) 2003: p 55.

Ibid. p 56.

16

Making: Production of the Timber Seasoning Shelter

“Wood is also ‘difficult’; its grain can vary unpredictably. Its differential strength and shrinkage with and across the grain, its limits of folding and bending, and the peculiarities of the joint each pose creative challenges for design.”

Robert Woodbury Canadian Design Research Network Simon Fraser University

Steaming: A Technique for Transforming the Intractable into the Plastic Steaming is a method of heat-treating timber.

It is a strategy that uses steam in an enclosed volume to raise the temperature of wood making it more pliable. By placing lengths of timber into a steam-box for a period of time associated to its thickness the timber becomes more plastic and compressible. The purpose of this strategy is to make timber more capable of enduring bending stresses. 1 Making the timber more compressible means that the cells in the timber are able to squeeze together and deform from their regularized shape. The lignin, like glue that holds the cells together, softens allowing the cells to slip past one another and take on altered forms. In other words, if one imagines the regularized cells of a length of timber as being spherical, those Figure 15. Two graphs showing the effects of steaming spheres, packed together inside the timber on the stress/strain relationship of European Beech in push against one another. If untreated they do tension and compression. (Stevens 2006) not easily distort. When compressed, stretched, or deformed the cells reach their elastic limit relatively quickly depending on the species. In the untreated case, once that limit is reached, the cells rupture become damaged or distorted beyond a useful state.

Figure 16. The position of the neutral axis after steaming treatment. (Stevens 2006)

17

Figure 17. Torn fibers due to tension failure on convex face.

(Stevens 2006)

Figure 18. Buckling due to compression failure on concave face. (Stevens 2006)

This damage is visibly evident on the timber either as tension failures, where the fibres appear torn or stretched or as compression failures, in which the timber buckles and ruptures; this is usually marked by folds or ripples in the continuity of the fibres. Steaming produces a better chance of success by allowing the cells and lignin to compress into a new position and for more of the cells to absorb compression forces. 2

For the development of the Timber Seasoning Shelter at Hooke Park our team experimented with different types of steam boxes and different methods of producing steam.

Initially we used the existing resources available at Hooke Park, an insulated sheet metal lined plywood steam box and catering kettle. This box was quite effective at maintaining its temperature but had length limitations. The maximum length of timber it was able to receive was two meters long. The method of steam production also relied on an energy intensive electric kettle. The Burco kettle was securely fitted onto the underside of the box. Once boiling the steam was piped through openings in the bottom of the steam box circulating the steam so that the timber was fully immersed in the heat source. One of the drawbacks of the Burco kettle system is that it is difficult to maintain a constant temperature and steam flow.

When adding water to the kettle its temperature falls below the boiling point, during this time the average temperature in the box drops below the required 100 degrees Celsius. In our subsequent design our team solved this problem by using a preheated header tank. This meant that any additional water mixed into the steam boiler was already closer to boiling temperature. This refinement in temperature control brought our team closer to a successful steaming method.

The final steaming system used for the production of the Timber Seasoning Shelter relied upon a custom made wood burning steamer. The design for this stove was simply based on the resources and making tradition available at Hooke Park. With the help of Charlie Corry-Wright, used propane tanks were welded together to create a fire-chamber and boiler.

The elegance of this approach is that with this stove our team could use the broken timber from the failed bends to feed the steaming process and save on fuel costs. The stove was simple.

18

Figure 19. The Timber Seasoning Shelter – Wood burning steam stove and steam box.

Charlie Corry-Wright and Omri Menashe.

A large empty forty-seven kilogram propane tank flushed out and re-purposed became the fire chamber. One end of the tank was cut as a door and perpendicular to it, at the other end, a large circular cutout allowed the fitting of a smaller nineteen-kilogram propane tank that would act as the steam boiler. The steam boiler tank had two cutouts that allowed for a chimney to be welded into place. This chimney played a crucial double role. It both heated the water via rising flue gases through the boiler tank and exhausted the fire chamber. The first iteration of the steamer stove did not have the preheated header tank referred to earlier. It was filled using a spout at the top of the tank. This proved problematic because the stove became too hot to handle and was difficult to fill. The secondary header tank solved this problem by allowing the stove operator to fill the secondary tank without interrupting the steam flow and without being exposed to the heat from the stove. This approach developed purely out of use. Designing and making as the need arose. Another example of this was evident when the solders around the spouts began to melt. Once our group recognized that this was a problem we solved this by welding iron fittings to the stove. The welded connections were better able to withstand the heat and were also more durable.

The architectural significance of steaming is that it creates the opportunity to turn an intractable material into a plastic one. In nature trees have both rigid and flexible tissue, depending on species these characteristics vary greatly. The trunk firmly keeps the tree rooted in the ground while simultaneously supporting the branches that flex and bend in the wind.

19

Figures 20,21,22. Thonet Steam bent bicycle. Andy Martin Studio 2012. http://www.andymartinstudio.com/edition-commission/Thonet-bike/ Retrieved: Tuesday December 3rd. 2013 - 10:00

The tree depends on these two characteristics for its survival. Even once felled and machined the raw timber maintains these characteristics. Steaming amplifies these factors. Steaming heats and unlocks the timber-cells releasing them just enough to be sculpted. The vital principle of this method is that the craftsman gains an ability to intimately wrestle with his medium.

Architecture is about knowing how to strategically employ one’s resources. Steaming is an energy intensive process that requires close resource management to be effective. During the steaming process the maker is constantly striving for the correct temperature so that the timber behaves in its predictable way. Tasked with producing a form the maker must respect the limitations of nature. New designs depend upon this respect, but are also possible because of it. Exemplified in the Timber Seasoning Shelter, architects and designers can make building components of various shapes and sizes provided the right degree of care, patients, and attention is invested in the process. Shaping material to behave in ways suitable to its function is the fundamental advantage of steaming. The prototype chairs, pictured below, produced in collaboration between Luke Olsen, Jim Tory, Petter Southall and three students during a five day workshop at Hooke Park called LociMake3, reflect the fertile potential inherent in this technique. The steaming technique provided the stimulus to shape the timber to preform both a functional-structural role and an expressive sculptural formal elegance. One can easily imagine these chairs becoming arrayed components that form larger networks of structure.

Another object showcasing the design opportunities of steaming, arguably to the point of economic obscenity, is Andy Martin Studio’s Thonet Bicycle. The actual design and fabrication costs are classified although it has been rumored to cost as much as 70,000 dollars – a far cry from Thonet’s Chair No. 14, a chair made for the masses. 4

Figure 23. Detail of steam-bent Ash wood chair. LociMake - Students, Luke Olsen, and Jim Tory.

Figure 24. Experimental prototype steam-bent Ash chairs Ash wood chairs. LociMake - Students, Luke Olsen, and Jim Tory.

20

Bending: The Physical Transformation of Form Bending is the art of shaping. The act of shaping timber and exploiting its elastic qualities creates a design opportunity. This technique, offers craftsman the advantage that form can begin to perform simultaneous functions and more importantly, form becomes function itself. In the case of the Timber Seasoning Shelter bending was used to clarify the localized planar connection, a simplified joinery, and also simultaneously produce the global form of the building itself. Our bending method became an analog strategy of shaping geometry – both simply and naturally. I believe that without the use of this strategy the building, in its

Figure 25. The progressive bending sequence of the components of the Timber Seasoning Shelter – each member was uniquely bent into a specific geometry. - Omri Menashe.

current form, would have been significantly more complex and time consuming to fabricate and assemble. Fabian Scheurer neatly introduces the complexities of fabrication in his essay titled: Materializing Complexity. In that essay Scheurer describes a number of issues – such as complex programing or control and operation of computer numerically controlled tools – that can be solved or avoided by intelligently applying the steam-bending method. That does not mean that other problems do not arise but I would argue they are of a lesser magnitude of complexity. The manipulation of timber, achieved by bending, resolves a number of fabrication challenges because bending uses the inherent properties developed in timber by nature in itself. In that essay he states: “The idea of just sending a 3-D model to the fabricator and receiving a few containers full of mass-customized components some days later is downright utopian.” 5 Mother Nature has innately created an opportunity for exploitation of the material characteristics. In the Timber Seasoning Shelter project the natural values of timber allowed 21

our team to achieve complex geometries. Thonet in his chair designs followed a similar intention because he recognized the natural efficiency and inherent value of the timber and the bending method. The rear legs of Chair No. 14 are simultaneously its backrest. Bending allowed Thonet to achieve two functions simultaneously. Bending and shaping in precise reliable ways becomes the pivotal technique that ensured Thonet’s success. Similarly, in the Timber Seasoning Shelter the accuracy with which the digital forms were shaped became the benchmark for success.

The bending method developed for the construction of the Timber Seasoning Shelter at Hooke Park developed progressively and relied on physical feedback from experimentation.

Our teams approach was open-minded about the types of materials we should experiment with and we allowed the test results to guide our decisions. Early on in the design development stage the team was unbiased about timber types and so we experimented with a variety of timber species, knowing almost intuitively from machining and handling the material that the fibrous characteristics of softwoods such as Cedar and Spruce would not be suitable for tight radius bending. Nonetheless, pursuing these tests to confirm our beliefs that hardwoods were the appropriate choice for more substantial development was an imFigure 26. Positive - Negative Bending forms.

(Stevens 2006) portant stage in the development of the bending process. Furthermore, the handbook Solid and Laminated Wood Bending, published by the United Kingdom’s Forest Products Research Laboratory, empirically confirmed our decision about the choice of Beech as a good timber for steaming. This is also echoed by Thonet’s use of Beech in Chair No.14. 6 Bending Experiments The first bending tools originated from the simple premise of pressing two molds together as Thonet had done with his veneer bending molds for the Boppard chairs. The difference between our methods was that during the Boppard period Thonet was bending laminae whereas my colleagues and I were bending solid wood. 7 Using male and female forms compressed together by hand driven clamps, in a relatively gentle curvature, our team began to understand the nature of solid bending. We soon understood that the more subtle the bend, the more difficult it was to maintain. These early tests also had very little structural meaning because the sections of timber were still not of a substantial enough scale. Spruce and Cedar were used for these experiments because they were available and they provided a good starting point for experimentation. Following these initial bending tests our group decided that we 22

Figure 27. Early single point pneumatic bending experiments. Omri Menashe

Figure 28. Second phase array bending using additional pneumatics to distribute the forces required to achieve successful bends. Omri Menashe

needed a new approach, one that would more reasonably engage with the scale of timber required to build larger structural spans. We also learned it required great physical effort to produce even simple gentle bends out of solid timber that was between ten and twenty millimeters thick.

At this stage, the production team began experiments with pneumatic cylinders to produce the force required to achieve bends in timber of a greater section. The first machines were simple single cylinder bending machines. Relying heavily on the use of Kerto Ply, an engineered timber product, these tools became vital in creating the limitations of the bending system. For example, they allowed us to understand the difference between point load bending and array bending, between full form bending, and the support structure required to translate the forces into the piece of timber. The two-way perpendicular lamination manner in which Kerto Ply is engineered granted us the advantage and freedom to secure the cylinders in almost any desired orientation. This freedom also meant that the machine could grow to any scale.

The single and triple cylinder experiments simply used fixed Kerto blocks, two or more blocks as bending formers, and single blocks as a cylinder stops. The Kerto blocking secured using long 75 millimeter to 150-millimeter timber-lock hexagonal head screws penetrated the block down into the base affording great alignment flexibility and fabrication simplicity. This system could be changed quickly and easily to produce new shapes and forms as the project’s design progressed and needed refining. The bending machine, like the plastic timber it shapes, can be adapted to meet specific needs. It is not a complex system that requires a deep knowledge base to modify or service. It simply operated in a binary on or off manner. Once the cylinder was engaged it would press the timber into the forming blocks. The team experimented with different timber thicknesses ranging from 25 millimeters to as much as 55 millimeters. Once these experiments were attempted, and successful bends achieved without signs of failure, the Beech (fagus sylvatica) appeared to be a suitable timber – not to mention the type most readily available at Hooke Park.

23

Figure 29. The array bending illustrated here represents the system for producing fixed curvature planar steambent components. Omri Menashe

In the next stage of making the challenge was to construct a full-scale nearly structural component using the steam bending method. After consultations with the structural engineers regarding the durability of Beech wood and their support for the material we agreed that a section thickness of 35 millimeters or more was required for structural integrity of the building. The section thickness of the members was pivotal to the project. It significantly altered the character of the bends because it modified the amount of force required to achieve those bends. It also meant that the bending machine would have to be robust enough to cope with the forces required for bending the timber. Overall design development was still occurring at this stage, and so the component that emerged from this phase of design was a symmetrical component of fixed curvature. In other words, the component was mirrored, its top and bottom members produced a planar surface. The achievement of bending a full-scale component with members of a thickness and width of 35-millimeter and 140 millimeter respectively, spurred the development forward to produce a locked-in triangulated hexagon of nine combined components.

The first experimental component and the group of nine that followed were made using the same bending machine, a machine of fixed curvature. These components, constructed using an array of pneumatics distributed along the timber to push it into its form, confirmed the viability of this strategy for bending. Because each component’s top and bottom members were identical these could be bent on a fixed form. Members were bent 24

Figure 30. Production bending machine alignment of pneumatic arrays and timber. Omri Menashe

individually and then aligned, drilled and assembled together. The alignment, post bending, was complicated because it required a delicate process of accurate clamping to hold the two members in their accurate position for drilling.

Inherent in the bending strategy is the elastic character of timber. This is both a blessing and a curse because the bent piece of timber will inevitably straighten out over time unless constrained. Beech wood is especially complicated in this sense. It is notorious for moving a great deal because of its dense tight grain structure, and fluctuations in moisture content greatly affect the timber unless it is somehow held or restricted from moving. In order to solve this challenge our team ensured to always restrain a member either with its opposing neighbor using clamps, or by restraining it independently using a ratchet strap.

The operation of this machine was simple. Once the steamed piece of timber was ready to be bent its mid-point was aligned with the center of the bending machine. By bending in this way, around a central datum where the center was always in the same location, our team ensured a system of production consistency. This center point, geometrically critical, acted as a zeroing datum around which all other measurements could be ascertained. Therefore, the bending method became rationalized into a system of checks and balances, it emerged as a network of nodes that could be verified against one other and the 3D model.

25

Figure 31. The difference between the fixed curvature bending machine and the variable curvature bending machine. Omri Menashe

Production Bending

The pre-production fixed bending machine enabled experimentation on a manageable scale. It allowed our group the opportunity to hone our skills for what would become the production system. The production machine was more complex than the fixed experimentation machine but its basis was rooted in the same fundamental simple mechanisms. In addition to the fundamental principles transferred over from one to the other, new improvements were made to the final production machine that would ensure the success of the project. The most fundamental change between these tools was the variable curvature of the production machine. By creating a simple system of tracks that ran perpendicular to the bend shape the formers could move into new curvatures. This allowed our group the opportunity of producing unique components that could aggregate together to create the shape of the building. By manually moving the forming blocks along the tracks, securing them individually using a plate compression system for each bend, our team gained a knowledge of the individuality of each component, just like the individual components that make up Thonet’s chair No. 14. An integrated system of parts that rely upon each other.

Another important difference between the fixed curvature and variable curvature machines, if not the most fundamental, was the use of the projector. Mounted precisely five meters above the bending deck of the machine, the projector was the key to making 26

Figure 32. Projection system operation of the gantry for adjustment and calibration. Omri Menashe

Figure 33. Calibrating the bending machine. Omri Menashe

the machine variable. It enabled us to illustrate the components at full-scale making the task of bending unique members significantly simpler by replacing the need for individual fabrication drawings. The alternative to having individual drawings did mean that precise bending schedules were required to keep the system organized and productive. The final major difference between the two machines was that the fixed curvature machine could only bend single members that would have to be individually secured before being assembled into 27

components with their neighbouring member. The variable curvature machine was designed to receive two members that could be secured to one another to hold their shape and then be released from the machine. This was a significant advantage to the production speed and efficiency and it meant that components could be temporarily bolted and allowed to season so that they were more likely to retain their precise intended curvature. After a period of seasoning the components could then be disassembled and drilled without the risk of losing their precise bent shape. At this point a split ring was also installed to cope with the shear loads generated between the bent members.

I have attempted to separate production bending from experimental bending for the purpose of illustrating the differences in the bending machines. The reality, however, was that throughout the bending process our team continually gained expertise as Thonet had done with his iterations of lamination bending and then later in his career with solid wood bending. That expertise was constantly influencing our decisions as we continued to fabricate the building. Everyday we refined the system to create a more balanced approach that allowed us to manage our fatigue and the fatigue of the bending machine. The bending machine was intended to make a specific building on a specific site, the architecture of the machine however lies in the process of fabrication that can be transferred to new sites with the possibility of making new buildings. It is a technique that is not limited to Hooke Park or to the resources available there. It is also a technique that can be applied in a new context with new parameters that will undeniably lead to alternative results. I would like to refer back to Kenneth Frampton’s description of Joseph Paxton’s Crystal Palace to provide an explanation: “The crystal palace was not so much a particular form as it was a building process made manifest as a total system, from its initial conception, fabrication and trans-shipment, to its final erection and dismantling. Like the railway buildings, to which it was related, it was a highly flexible kit of parts.” 8 If the Crystal Palace was to be built again in a contemporary context, should it be built using mimetic traditional methods that made it successful? Or will it be like it was in 1851, an opportunity to showcase new technology – once again an occasion to experiment in fabrication and production processes in ways that the Timber Seasoning Shelter project has shown is contemporarily possible.

28

Figure 34. The Crystal Palace London, United Kingdom. 1851 - Joseph Paxton. (http://www.hdwallpaperstop. com/wp-content/uploads/2013/12/Widescreen-Crystal-Palace-Wallpaper-of-High-Resolution.jpg) Retrieved: Monday January 20th. 2014 – 00:24

Figure 35. The Timber Seasoning Shelter – Hooke Park. Architectural Association School of Architecture.

Photo: Valarie Bennett 2013

29

Notes –– Making: Production of the Timber Seasoning Shelter 1 W.C. Stevens and N. Turner. Solid and Laminated Wood Bending. Forest Products

Research Laboratory, (Fredoina Books. Amsterdam, The Netherlands,Reprint

from 1952 edition.) 2006: p 1 - 34.

2 Ibid. p 6.

3 Loci Make - AA Visiting School workshop based at Hooke Park. - Luke Olsen.

4 Gizmodo Website - Retrieved: Tuesday December 3rd. 2013 - 10:00 (http://gizmodo.com/5948864/this-beautiful-bike-is-made-from-bent-beech-wood).

5 Fabian Scheurer. “Materialising Complexity” AD: Architectural Design. (John Wiley &

Sons. London United Kingdom.) 2010: 86 - 93.

6 Alexander von. Vegesack. Thonet: Classic Furniture in Bent Wood and Tubular Steel.

Edited by Marie Clayton. (London: Hazar Publishing) 1996.

7 Andrea Gleiniger. The Chair No. 14 by Michael Thonet. Edited by Volker Fischer.

(Frankfurt: Verlag Form) 1998.

8 Kenneth Frampton. Modern Architecture: A Critical History. (Third. New York, New

York: Thames & Hudson.) 1992 : p 34.

30

Figure 36. Glue laminating the Timber Seasoning Shelter edge beam. 2013 Photo - Glen Stellmacher.

Glue Lamination: An Alternative to Solid Bending As discussed in the previous chapter bending is the art of shaping. Illustrated in both the practices of Michael Thonet and the Eameses bending can be achieved using a number of different techniques. Thonet bent thin timber strips, otherwise known as laminae 1, and the Eameses bent thin veneers of wood. 2 In this chapter, I will very briefly touch upon the Timber Seasoning Shelter production team’s decision to use lamination techniques for constructing the edge beam elements of the building.

Lamination is the process of building up or gluing together a dimensional thickness using thin layers of wood. 3 Each layer flexibly slips past its neighbours when the bend is being set. Once the glue, used to bind the layers together, hardens the bend is firmly secure in its shape and the curvature becomes a result of the accumulated layers. A key problem with this system as, Thonet had experienced, is the glue’s behavior when it is expose to moisture.

Generally, timber that is glue-laminated requires a maximum moisture content of twenty percent. In other words, to effectively produce glue-laminated beams dry seasoned timber is a necessity. The decision to use the glue lamination technique for the Timber Seasoning Shelter was one of fabrication feasibility.

This feasibility was dependent on a number of characteristics: material availability, the size of the beam, and its complexity of curvature. The edge beam plays a significant structural role in stiffening the canopy and was too large to steam-bend in one continuous piece. The raw materials to achieve such a large beam also do not exist at Hooke Park. Finding continuous 31

Figure 37. Sequence of shaped pieces used to create the strong-axis of curvature in the doubly-curved Timber Seasoning Shelter edge beam. - Glen Stellmacher.

long lengths of high quality knot free timber is highly problematic due to the age of the forest, it was this very challenge that led our team to build small short components for the main part of the canopy to begin with. Finally, to bend a piece of timber of approximately 400 millimeters of thickness is nearly unimaginable – one would require an incredible amount of force to achieve success. The beam was therefore glue-laminated. In order to do this our team purchased seasoned Ash (Fraxinus excelsior). From our research, this timber, similarly to Beech showed promising characteristics for bending. 4 Cut into thin strips eight millimeter thick and then shaped it layered in a precise pattern in order to achieve a curved shape along the strongaxis of curvature. The weak-axis was bent using a former, illustrated in figure 36, and held in place until the adhesive had cured.

The recognition of material limitations and fabrication feasibility directed our team towards a method of bending that is perhaps not as pure as solid bending but nonetheless was very correctly suited for the task. Once again the role of our team as architect - makers was to deploy a particular technique to suit a specific situation. The glue lamination method of the edge beam was an opportunity for our team to learn a technique that we knew abstractly from research but not manually. Producing the beam gave us the opportunity to expand our understanding of bending and the complexities of lamination. It illuminated the significance of Thonet’s early years of lamination and the great lengths to which he went to in order to refine and develop his glues.

32

Notes –– Glue Lamination: An Alternative to Solid Bending 1

2

3

4

Alexander von Vegesack. Thonet: Classic Furniture in Bent Wood and Tubular Steel.

Edited by Marie Clayton. (London: Hazar Publishing) 1996. p 62.

Dung Ngo and Eric Pfeiffer. Bent Ply: The Art of Plywood Furniture. (New York, New York: Princeton Architectural Press) 2003.

W.C. Stevens and N. Turner. Solid and Laminated Wood Bending. Forest Products Research Laboratory, (Fredoina Books. Amsterdam, The Netherlands, Reprint from 1952 edition.) 2006: p 35.

Ibid. p 7.

33

The Timber Seasoning Shelter: A Product of Experimental Making

“The best education is one’s own experience. Experimenting surpasses studying. To start out by ‘playing’ develops courage, leads in a natural manner to an inventive way of building and furthers the equally important pedagogical facility of discovery. Inventiveness is the objective.”

Josef Albers Teaching Form through Practice “Innovation is not just change arising through the potential of any such conditions, but a change in the conditions of the field such that new potential is felt – the sense that something more can now happen, but has not yet.”

Pia Ednie-Brown, Mark Burry, Andrew Burrow.

Architectures of Vitality

From the very outset of the making of the Timber Seasoning Shelter experimentation formed the basis of design. At stake, the opportunity to discover a new method for making architecture, a method that could adapt to the specific production needs of the project at specific stages was achieved. Throughout the various stages of the project, as architect-makers, our team learned to resolve difficulties by making experimental solutions. For example, facing the overwhelming challenge of needing to produce 318 unique bends to span the surface of the canopy we resolved to simplify the problem down to basics. We created a system that used simple operations in a repeated prescribed sequence to achieve a greater whole. Our solution to use a projector to project the shape of the components onto the surface of the bending machine reconciled the conceived objects with their physical making. Our reliance on technologies such as projectors, computers, pneumatics etc. was conversely offset by the use of primal processes and tools. The architecture of the Timber Seasoning Shelter lies in our ability, as designers and makers, to continue to solve problems simply and to cope with the unpredictability of the material at hand. Our building became, as J.E. Gordon suggests, a study of structure:

The study of structures, however, often works the other way around: the flow of ideas is as often from practice to theory as from theory to practice. In some respects this field is the opposite of pure science, since it is essentially purposive. 1

34

The Timber Seasoning Shelter is purposive structure. It not only functions as a building but also as a means of communicating the possibilities of experimentation with materials and techniques. Whether those materials are high quality or low quality, expensive or cheap, finished or unfinished is irrelevant to experimentation. Those characteristics will always remain project specific characteristics that define quality but not innovation. As Pia Ednie-Brown, Mark Burry, and Andrew Burrow state, innovation is about vitality. It is “the state of being vigorous and active” arising out of “the sense of vitality emerging out of the complexity of conditions through which its arose.” 2 These authors are explicit that innovation is about a notion of possibility, that it is an anticipation of the future. The Timber Seasoning Shelter is an exemplar of future possibilities. It elicits questions about techniques of fabrication, about the possibilities of material understanding, for example, each unique piece of timber in the structure has particular characteristics, grain direction, modulus of elasticity, etc. that are a result of the conditions in which it was grown. If architect-makers begin to investigate and apply their knowledge of those characteristics the potential for maximum material usage and efficiency reveals new avenues of making.

Throughout the course of constructing the building our team innovated by creating simple methods for solving problems, methods we learned to trust by virtue of doing them. By using our hands and bodies, by trial and error. Because we had no prior experience and such a building has – to our knowledge – never been constructed, our dependence on this mode of production is unsurprising, just as Thonet and the Eameses had done before us. As Josef Albers stated, “pioneers have often started out as non-professionals.” 3 Makers who believe that the experiments they conduct provide new opportunities of expression and a meaningful foundation upon which to build.

In my attempt to define the Timber Seasoning Shelter as a product of experimental making I have come to the conclusion that buildings should have an enlightening role. They should act as opportunities to challenge and question conventional methods of construction.

In conventional building design, although it is important for architects to understand the process of making, the architect is generally content to produce agreed upon drawings that dissociate them from the process of construction. 4 Drawings become a method of protection, a system of contractual understanding that protects the architect from becoming too deeply invested in the complex realities of fabrication. By taking ownership of the production of the building and therefore all of the intricate details that go along with that, for example by being responsible for machines that make architecture possible, the architect gains the opportunity to reveal new fields of possibility – fields that in the conventional systems of contemporary construction would otherwise remain hidden. Michael Thonet and the Eameses relied upon novel machines, tools, and techniques, as prerequisites for making novel objects. They recognized that making simple elegant machines and objects was possible, if the process that gives birth to them is experimental in nature.

35

Figure 38. The Timber Seasoning Shelter – Hooke Park. Architectural Association School of Architecture.

Photo: Valarie Bennett 2013

36

Notes –– The Timber Seasoning Shelter: A Product of Experimental Making 1

2

3

4

J.E. Gordon. The Science of Structures and Materials. (Scientific American Library.

Scientific American Books, United States of America) 1988: p 3.

Pia Ednie-Brown and Mark Burry and Andrew Burrow.

“The Innovation Imperative: Architectures of vitality.” AD: Architectural Design (No.221. John Wiley & Sons. London, United Kingdom) 2013: p 8 - 17.

Josef Albers. “Teaching Form through Practice.” (AA Files 67. Ed. Thomas Weaver.

The Architectural Association School of Architecture.) 2013: p 130 - 131 Bob Sheil. “Design Through Making” AD: Architectural Design. (Vol.75 Issue 4. John Wiley & Sons. London United Kingdom) 2005: p 5 - 12.

37

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The Architectural Association School of Architecture. (2013): 130 - 131

[2]

Albrecht, Donald. [et.al]. The Works of Charles and Ray Eames: A legacy of Invention. Ed. Donald Albrecht. Harry N. Abrams in association with the Library of Congress. New York, New York. 1997

[3] Cohen, Staffan Ahrenberg with Jean-Louis. Le Corbusier’s Secret Laboratory: From

Painting to Architecture. Edited by Jean-Louis Cohen. Ostfildern: Hatje Cantz Verlag, 2013.

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