THE MAG AZINE FOR PRO FE SSION Al 0ESIGNERSAN 0 THE IR Cl lEN TS

Official Journal of the Designers Institute of New Zealand

August / September 2003

$7.50

(omm8Pcial Aph5tand OQ-sign8p.

OFFICE 54 5HORTLAND STREETAUCI<J.AND

ONE PLUSONE EQUALSTHREEPRADEEP SHARMA REVIEWS THE METAFORM 03 COMPETITION,

WHAT IT IS, WHERE IT CAME FROM AND WHY IT'S BEEN SO

SUCCESSFUL. (PHOTOS: MICHAEL NG)

For those of you that haven't heard about it, the

Metaform 03 competition and exhibition is at the

Auckland Museum until September. It WIll then

move to the Dowse and, hopefully, it maye en

continue 0 erseas, showcasing ew Zealand

creativity and innovation mternationally

Metaform 03 was a competition to design

furniture using Green eal, a uruque, ew Zealand

developed, value-added material. It was about the

collisIOn of two creative Ideas - the scientistS m

de elopmg a value-added product, and designer's in

addmg alue to a new matenal. Ant Il IS a claSSIC

story of one plus one addmg up to Significantly more

than two. So what was Il all about7

On the surface, it appears to be an exhlb1ll0n of

furruture design. And a yery good one It is too (see

photos). But Metaform 03 IS much, much more.

Let us start with the word "Metaform". The tag line

that goes WIth this utle is: "environmental

transformation, material and design".

TIm Allan, of Metaform 03 organisers,

consultants Locus Research, has a passion for

sustainable design, and this was brought through m

the philosophy of the competition. "Meta" stands

for change and transformation, while the word

"form" stands for object or essence.

The competition was about talong a value-added

product, Green Seal, and designmg and then

producing pieces of fUrniture. The furniture had to

embody some of the values mherent in the matenal,

but also have an element of sustainability - an

understanding of how we as humans use the

furniture and also the Impact the furniture has on

the environment.

CHEMICAL CREATIVITYThere are two great stones here about creativity and

mnovatlon. The first one is m the de elopment of

Green Seal. This IS a product that starts off as

Radiata pine and then through some clever

processmg IS transformed into a hardwood.

The second story is about design and form

makJng - making an object that has functionality,

ergonomics and aesthetics, addmg value to a

matenal. The competition is about addmg value to

added value.

In 1985, the ew Zealand Furniture

Manufacturers' Federation approached the Forestry

Research Institute with a proposal and a challenge to

do somethmg to the vast amount of Radiata pme

grown in this country, to make it more of a useful

timber for the furniture industry The milial brief

was to try and make it behave more like a laminate

or MDF.

Dr Robert Franich was the principal scientist on

the project. He started off the challenge by

redefining the brief - how to make Radiata pine

perform m totally different ways. He and his team

started off by mvestlgating all the technologies

currently available (then) to transform wood.

They studied all the techmcal literature and all

the patents worldWIde. But they did not just read

the mformation, they actually tned out each of the

techniques. They immersed themselves in all the

relevant processes to try and benchmark

performance.

But nothing really worked. After two years of

hard work, they went back to basics. looking at

nature, they looked at the fundamental principles

that constituted the strength and stiffness in wood to

try and get a fundamental understandmg of cell

structure. They kept coming back to cellulose as

contnbutmg to the tensile strength of the material,

and a cocktail of complex biomolecules as

contributing to the compressive strength of the

material.

This provided the inspiration for a new direction

of research.

The end result, after considerable hard work and

experimentation was the use of vacuum and pressure

to gel. molecules through the cell walls. But

"pushing" complex bio-molecules through cell walls

is not easy, and so a technique of pushing small

molecules through first was tried.

These small molecules do not resemble the

complex bio-molecules at all, but they could be put

m place far more easily Once inside, a process to

initiate the condensation of these molecules to form

the complex bio-molecules IS started The artificial

wood material starts to bUild inside the radiata pine.

MAIN PICTURE' NEAL SMITH'S SMOOTH "PLANAR TABLE" IS

CENTRE FOREGROUND; SIMON DEARSLEYS TUBE AND

PLATFORM TABLE "URBAN GRAZE" CAN BE GLIMPSED AT

LEFT REAR

FAR LEFT: NATHAN GOLDWORTHY'S "NORDIC RHYTHMN" IS

SEEN HERE IN FRONT OF NEAL SMITH'S WINNING TABLE

OVERLEAF: JAMES WHITIA'S TUBULAR "LOGGE SEAT" CAN

BE SEEN HERE AT LEFT AGAINST THE WALL; NADIA

MICHAELSON'S DECK·MEETS·LOUNGER "UNDER

CONSTRUCTION" IS MIDDLE GROUND AT RIGHT

PROD N047

In Dr R ben Fram h' \\' rd : It' hke pounng

wood Into w d l ounds lmple, now at least' Thenet suit umber called Green ealthat IS far

denser, tiffer and more re thent than common orarden Radiata. A useful addiuonal benefit IS that

YOU can colour or tam the product dunng theproc so It' changed right the way through.

CREATIVE ALCHEMY~I can t help feelmg dlSappomted about what's

happenmg m furniture design now. Too much ISmade that is transllory, and IS designed and made for

all the wrong reasons. Adven1S1ng and magazmesare breedmg a culture of dIScontent. People are

made to feel that they must have something new and

different for Its own sake.~To produce things which are merely new and

not better IS really evil . Things should be madebecause they are better and with regard to thelunlted resources of the planet, so they should be

reusable and long-lastmg But the maIn drive Inmagazines and on teleV1Slon - in those awfulprogrammes about mtenor de51gn - IS forImpermanence. People often thInk that merenewness is mnovauon, but It isn't." Robin Day in the

UK newspaper The Guardian, on 13 March 1999.So, what could deSlgn add to the Green Seal

technology7 The challenge to the designcommuruty, students and profesSIOnals ahke, wasto play With the matenal and see what formsemerged. The brief was loosely based around llemsof furnllure, but thIS was open to the creativeinterpretatIOn of the Individual

The process for the Metaform 03 competitionrequired entrants to submit a scale model ordraWing of their proposed deSign The Judges - awho's who of ew Zealand furniture. Tim Miller,Mark PennIngton, Pete Bossley, Humphrey lkm andmyself - then Interrogated these, mdlvidually andthen as a group Judgmg cntena was discussed"enthUSiastically" and a shortltst was made ofdeSlgns that should go on to the next stage and be

made into full-scale prototypesThiS IS a major step, requinng much

048 PRODE&GN

commitment and a fair amount of Investment Inboth lime and money. Each of the 37 finahsts fromthe shorthst proVlded a detailed culting Itst prior toquantilles of Green Seal beIng despatched to them.ThiS was no mean feat and you would be surprisedhow many people there are who have no Idea what

a cuttIng list IS!LoglSllcs aside, each entrant then developed and

refined their proposals, which they then submitted

to the judging panel And what fun we had! Thescope of Ideas, the range of manufactUring andconstruction technologtes used, the conceptualdevelopment, were Simply excellent.

The scientific design process that was followedm coming up With the product m the first place isvery Similar to the process the deSigners wouldhave followed. A senes of ideas turned mtoconcepts, expenmented with unul the insplrallonfor the final design came and the protot pes made

The Judges were looking for a clear articulationof an idea - a concept well thought out, welldeveloped and then well executed The objects hadto make use of the properlles of the material, yet beuseful. This IS not such an easy task Yet nearly allthe entnes demonstrated a strong strand ofcreatiVlty

IDEAS EVERYWHEREThe Winner of the profeSSional designers' categorywas Neal Smith With an extremely elegant pie ecalled "Planar Table" ThIS piece explolled thproperties of Green Seal really well and all wed sucha slim, elegant form to be made. The e. e uti n ofthe model and then the full scale prototyp ~ aexqUlsnely handled Smith also demonstrated asuperbly deltcate touch m hiS restrml1l m the stylingThere IS a scnsillvllY of form thm pr du essomethmg beaullfulto look at, yet sturdy and goodto use A fine balanc .

The Winner of the student category was JamesWhma for hiS "Logge eat" On e agam, thIS plecwas superbly presented, b th at model stage andthen through to final prototype It ell.plOits thepropert les of Green Seal (particularly Its stllTness) to

superb effect to produce a seat that IS dynamiC ill Itsfunctlonahty The design's elegant form is wellthought through and VISUally exclUng

Choosing the winners was not an easy task andthe Judges decided that It was tmportant toacknowledge the excellent standard of entnes by

presentmg the followmg speaal awards SunonDearsley for "Urban Graze", and ad.ia Michaelsonfor "Under Construction"

But even that was not enough We also v.antedto commend the following enmes Icholas Len for"Loose Ends", athan Goldworthy for~. ord.icRhythrnn"; and Stu Barr for ~Chimera"

Congratulations to all the wtnners and all thefinahsts! Thts is such an excellent body of work thatit deserves to be taken to new aud.iences. Aud.iences

around the world.This competition and now ClI.hiblUon

demonstrates, in a very expliCit manner, creau\1tyand mnovatlon at many le\'els For one thing It saysthat e\ Zealand has commodity products, but bo~:

can we add value to them!A collISIOn of two Ideas, producmg somethmg

else that may de\'elop a hfe of Its own Well done to

all those Involved

The Metaforn1 03 COmpelltlOn and ubscquentexhlbillon would not have been po Ible \\1thoutthe con Iderable effon of L u Research, and mparticular, Tun Allan Green eal donated all thematenal, while parent ompan' Caner Holt Han'c 'and PR D iG were al 0 extremel)' upportl\'eAu kland 1u eum ho ted the ·hlbltion and thelaun h

ee the follOWIng web ltes for further mfonnallon

about the COmpetillOn, the matenal. the supporters

and takeholderswww.metaforn10.nz\0\ vwgreenscal.co.nzwww locusre earch comwww hh. omwwwagtn co nz