A distributed design system that transforms natural and irregular sticks into useful structures.
First, there was FAZ - a participatory process to produce furniture and toys. However, easy-to-make designs using available materials and basic tools, along with workshops to teach people how to make them, is not enough! The next small, but big, step is to use free materials: free wood growing along roadsides. This are young rogs from fast-growing invasive species—canes and acacias.
On the occasion of iAtelier from the Crafting Europe project in partnership with CEART - "a program of activities designed to encourage innovation by integrating new digital fabrication technologies into craft practice" - I combined my design skills with Victor Caço's crafting skills, and we created a distributed design system that transforms natural and irregular branches into useful structures.
In this example, we finished the chair with a traditional woven craft technique from Alentejo: the seat and back are made from a natural fiber—Typha (also an invasive species in Portugal).
We designed a machine made from laser-cut plywood and 3D-printed parts that cuts a regular cone at the end of a wooden rod. Using 3D-printed connectors to join the branches together, we built a chair. This was finalist at the Distributed Design Awards in Adaptable & Open Design category.
This project has its primitive version in the FAZ workshop branches stool. This stool was designed to be built with minimal material and technical resources. The structure is reduced to the minimum number of elements necessary to stabilize the form. The connections are made with upcycled cotton fabric and wood glue (PVA). The torn strips of fabric are wrapped around the branches and brushed with glue, creating a strong and flexible bond.
This stool is designed to be built in a workshop with a large group of children aged six and up. This requires simple and safe tools; in this case, scissors and a brush. It aims to awaken children to the fact that common objects, such as twigs cut directly from a tree and fabric scraps, can be transformed into structural objects for everyday use.





