Interest in complex and organic shapes that steam bending hardwood can create, led to the research and testing of this project. Imperfection of natural material posed unpredictable challenges in the process.

Such irregularity, however, created a set of known boundaries of maximum angle or minimum length for bending, twisting, and folding of red beech.

Bending exploration was studied through the aid of Rhino, which allows the analysis of 3-dimensional curvature and the flow of stress through the structure.

Team
Wang Yuanzhi, Vanita Narwani, Wen Zhan

Credits
Advisor: Kuo Jze Yi

Media
Steam bent pine, red oak, white beech, red beech stripwood

Dimension
1250*500*5mm thick strip

Year
2019

Medium
5mm thick red beech stripwood

Dimension
1000*1000*550mm

Medium
10mm thick red beech stripwood

Dimension
1000*1000*280mm