sohma furniture develops a new material that replaces the value of plastic and wood

plastic is a typical symbol of mass-production which has values that can be copied easily and homogeneously. in spite of this, wood has been used for furniture and craft works for long time can be defined as a material that has unique properties due to the natural pattern and texture. for this project, sohma furniture design suggests the new way of thinking of product design through the replacement of both values aforementioned and develop them as one material.

three products are made to make use of the material texture

during the production process of plastic products, 95% use the mold during molding phase. japanese based sohma furniture design has used wooden mold to copy wood texture instead of using usual mold and broiled resin to a surface of wood that was singed. it is possible to copy the singed grain because it creates patterned ashes on the surface due to different amount of moisture in each grain. these grains include high amount of moisture remained as its own pattern.

material detail of the ‘wooden box’

using this process, plastic changes its own figure as homogeneous into a plastic that has characteristics. it is easy to singe the same surface of wood and copy it to plastic. this means that sohma are able to mass-produce the grains — this is ‘copying wood’. the values that both plastic and wood have at first have been replaced. the typical mass-production material ‘plastic’ that has no characteristic has characteristic through this process and the unique material ‘wood’ became the material that can be copied. the two materials changed into completely different component due to the replacement process that sohma furniture design has used. the japanese designer believes that this idea brings new perspective to our life.

‘wooden pail’

material detail of the ‘wooden pail’

even when held over light, it also produces a distinctive unique expression

‘woodworking box’

this material made by replacing two material values ​​has a unique texture

singeing a surface of wood

broiling resin to a surface of wood that was singed

remove from the mold after plastic cures

shaving burrs and shape them

these product is made up of these parts

designboom has received this project from our ‘DIY submissions‘ feature, where we welcome our readers to submit their own work for publication. see more project submissions from our readers here.

edited by: apostolos costarangos | designboom