Digital Wood Joints 2014-09-08

50 DIGITAL WOOD JOINTS
Jochen Gros

Wood Joints are fascinating! They embellish old furniture and wood constructions of ancient Japanese temples alike. Everytime we come across them, we are filled with admiration: Admiration for the skill of the master craftsman, as their creator, but also admiration for the balance between function and beauty, which turns the furniture or temple into a work of art.

With the onset of industrialisation, the traditional wood joints have been banned more and more to the background. Manufacturing has to be above all efficient, so there is no more room for traditional wood joints. Or is there?

As computer-controlled wood processing machines move into the cabinet-makers' workshops, the way two pieces of wood are joined together in a construction needs to be reconsidered. The digital wood joints were developed in the course of several years of research at the C...Lab of the Hochschule für Gestaltung Offenbach, a project headed by Prof. Jochen Gros and Designer Friedrich Sulzer.

The result of this research are 50 digital wood joints, divided into frame joints, board joints and carcass joints. These wood joints are meant to inspire you, so that you will experiment and use them for your projects or develop your own digital woodjoints. We provide each wood joint in various data formats. Download the complete package (49MB) and you get them all including a PDF-Guide and suggestions for use. Or download only 4 examples and separately the instructions for these examples.

We are looking forward for the submission of your modifications and pictures of implementation.

Some rights reserved:
CC BY-NC-SA 3.0
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