As part of an applied research project funded by the Unit for Rural Change of the Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock and Fisheries, in 2013 the CIEFAP (Patagonian Centre for Forest Extension and Research) and DESIGNO-patagonia studied to find Design solutions for a big problem: the use of small diameter rolls of Ponderosa Pine.
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The Andean Patagonia region has more than 90 thousand hectares of this species. Because of their age, thinning is required, and this involves a significant cost for producers. Until now there is no income from maintenance raw material.
This was great challenge mostly because wood thinning of this pine is unstable to humidity changes and, on the other hand, these are extremely tapered logs.
Interdisciplinary work made it possible to arrive at two product lines that exploit this rarely used resource:
"Irregular" Line (Shown in photos here) is a series of furniture in which glued wood panels (from selected short blocks) with this bumpy texture are the greatest strength.
"Octogon" Line (Armchair render here) is a system of modular pieces that make use of pine poles. With a simple set of parts (flat tables and octagonal suspenders) a family of 9 robust and inexpensive furniture is built.
With the idea of systematization, furniture can be disassembled to reduce transport costs and facilitate the replacement of any broken parts.
In April 2015 we made formal presentation of the results in the Hall of Argentine Cabinet.
