Knowledge transfer a key component of furniture and lighting design collaboration in American hardwoods
REFRACTIONS, a cross-cultural, international design collaboration between Adam Markowitz and Phantom Hands, was unveiled in December at Sabha BLR in Bangalore, as part of BLR Hubba, a two-week, all-encompassing annual cultural festival where the city comes together to experience Bangalore in all its fullness and richness. Commissioned by the American Hardwood Export Council (AHEC), the leading international trade association for the American hardwood industry, the collection made from American red oak, cherry and maple by Phantom Hands includes a dining table, a bench, two pendant lights and a wall sconce.
“We had been talking to AHEC for a while, but it took some time to find the right project. AHEC understood that we wanted to be a part of the design process for the products that would get made as part of the collaboration. They introduced us to the architect and furniture designer Adam Markowitz, with an open mandate to make anything we wanted to. What was attractive to us about working with Adam was that he was a hands-on woodworker, with plenty of experience in working with American hardwoods. Adam came to us with an open mind and the idea for the products came out of several conversations we had with him,” said Deepak Srinath, Co-Founder, Phantom Hands.
The initial brief involved Markowitz being given a specific architectural space to consider as a starting point, with the aim of leveraging his specific set of skills. Phantom Hands were also aware of the work that Markowitz had done with bending and curvature in wood, and they were interested in learning more about those techniques specifically, so ideally the work would involve bending and curvature to encourage the opportunity for skill sharing. Lastly, Markowitz was asked to consider the Wood Rose, a unique flower as a possible starting point. These formed the defining starting elements of the project and shaped the initial design process.
“My initial concern was to make sure that my work was imbued with an Indian-ness that was reflective of the collaboration and cultural exchange. Working closely with Phantom Hands, the collaboration became far more personal in nature and became less about an ‘Australian in India’ or ‘Western Designer/Maker meets Indian Designer/maker’ and far more ‘Adam meets Phantom Hands’. I think the result of this interpersonal, process-based method speaks for itself in the work together – looking at the pieces they are not something I would have arrived at working in isolation,” said Adam Markowitz, Founder, Adam Markowitz Design.
The dining table, made from American red oak, is deceptively simple in structure, being two facing half cylinders, which have then been carved and shaped. The carving and shaping was done on-site, with a pencil, jigsaw and hand tools. According to Markowitz, two facing half cylinders is the simplest way to make a table with curves. However, you can barely read the initial cylinder shape at all in the final designs, as the handwork and sculpting has taken the form somewhere else (while retaining the structural logic of the half-cylinder).
“Whilst I initially set out to design a light, the table concept came quickly and unintentionally, and I think it is my favorite piece of the five. When the prototype was remade, I was asked to draw the shape in 3D so they could reference it for cutting out the legs – I instructed them to use the prototype itself as the reference, as the shapes I had drawn, and cut would be better than the shapes I drew on the computer. I think this is an important element of my process laid bare. On remaking the piece, we cross-laminated the veneer into plywood internally to reinforce the structure of the shape to give the piece additional rigidity,” added Markowitz.
The bench is again looking to explore the strength of curves – both the seat and the legs are extremely thin and would never be able to take the structural loads if they were flat. The curvature and the laminating process allows these benches to become very strong with minimal material. If you think of the seat as a curved beam, and the leg as a curved column, these two elements are incredibly strong individually, but when connected they also naturally resist racking forces. It is so strong that they were able to undermine the strength of the connection slightly to create a floating detail between the leg and the seat, to give a sense of this lightness and strength.
“I wanted to have seating to complement the table, and didn’t dare attempt a chair given the timeframe. American red oak was chosen for both the table and benches for its warmth, with a connection to mid-century oak pieces, for its strength in this structurally challenging application, and for the consistency of its grain/color toning which meant that veneers could be readily matched,” added Markowitz. “Building on my prior experience with lighting and the suggestion from Phantom Hands that it would be nice if there was a dialogue between the table and the lights, we also created two pendant lights and a wall sconce.”
Markowitz started with the idea of a shape which was ‘cut out’ of the legs of the table. The initial prototyping explorations were made with the circular offcut cut from the table leg, though the final pieces were ultimately made independently. The cutouts resulted in two curved, petal-like shapes, which spoke to the Wood Rose starting point given to Markowitz by Aparna Rao, Co-Founder of Phantom Hands. The challenge lay in intersecting these two shapes in different ways to find shapes that were strong, elegant, and worked to conceal and reflect the light source.
The Banana Leaf Pendant, named for its similarity to the Banana Leaf, intersects two petal shapes along their long edges, creating a curved central spine that is very strong. Each petal shape then flows out from this central spine in a convex shape that diffuses the reflected light. A third petal shape, suspended below the intersecting petals, hugs the curved form above tightly and conceals the light source. Similarly, the design approach to the Butterfly Pendant rotates these petal elements and joins them along their short edge, to create two bower-like concave forms reminiscent of a butterfly’s wings to reflect and diffuse the light. A petal is inverted underneath, which again conceals the light sources.
“While the lights in cherry and maple have been finished to express their lovely natural tone, red oak is known for its porosity and excellent ability to be stained. I took the opportunity to work with Phantom Hands to explore color options, something that is a frequent area of exploration in their other work. We settled on a color that darkened the oak, reminiscent of the teak that is a familiar tone in their collections and throughout India. Overall, these timbers work really well together with a gentle complementary contrast,” added Markowitz.
In addition to the pendants, the wall sconce takes the two petal shapes and intersects them face to face to create a surface, which reflects the light, and a smaller shroud, which conceals the light source. In this piece, Markowitz expresses the intersectional quality of the design logic by showing the petal components passing through each other. This also creates opportunities to conceal wall mounting and wiring. Phantom Hands produced two wall sconces, a hardwired version and a plug-in version. One sconce was made with a blend of cherry & maple to match the pendant lights, and one sconce entirely in maple to really celebrate the qualities of this timber species on its own.
“Not only did AHEC via the Rossi Group provide us with three timber species to experiment with, they also connected us to technical experts to help us learn about working with each of these species. Access to this kind of expertise was invaluable, and we’ve already launched products in American hardwoods like red oak because of the knowledge we gained from his project. The environmental credentials of American hardwoods make them extremely attractive for us and the data on regeneration provided for each species helped us make clear decisions on which timbers we would want to use in our future collections. In fact, I would go so far as to say that decisions on which species we want to work with will influence the design of our future collections,” added Srinath.
“During manufacturing, the team at Phantom Hands collected data on the volumes of the three species used to make the five pieces. In total (and including wastage), 0.77 cubic meters of American cherry, maple and red oak were used and through our Life Cycle Assessment tool, we can calculate that all of this wood would take just 1.72 seconds to be replaced in the American hardwood forest through natural regeneration. Furthermore, we know that, on arrival in Chennai port, the American hardwood lumber that was donated by The Rossi Group, would have been carbon negative,” added Roderick Wiles, AHEC Regional Director.
A key component of the collaboration involved knowledge transfer and skill sharing between Markowitz and Phantom Hands. Working remotely in Australia and then in-person during his visits to Bangalore, Adam was able to help the team from Phantom Hands master methods for laminating timber, including techniques for sawing veneer; techniques for stitching veneer together into larger panels; methods of jig making for pressing veneers into shapes; and methods for gluing with clamps and with a vacuum press. Despite the language barrier, Adam was able to not only build a rapport with the team in India, but he also learnt a lot from watching them work and developed a deep respect for their hand skills stemming from their long craft tradition.
“Through collaborations like this, which involve passing on much-needed technical knowledge and hands-on experience, as well as showing the beauty, versatility and environmental credentials of American hardwoods, we hope to encourage more manufacturers in India to choose them,” concluded Wiles.
