SMULD

The Danish title ‘SMULD’ translates to all the sawdust, wood shavings, powder and particles leftover from the woodworking and processing of lumber. This side stream of the timber industry is currently utilized for relatively short-lived products, or ends up as pellets or other fuelwood. The exhibition features an exploration of different sawdust based architectural materials, aiming to make new use of an otherwise neglected material. Four portals with four distinctly different material types are on view in the Dinesen showroom in Copenhagen The wood and timber industry is predicted to play an important role as we transition the way we build to meet planetary boundaries. If we are to believe that wood can be a path towards a more sustainable built environment, we must be careful to utilize the entire tree trunk, from planks and offcuts to shavings, sawdust, and dust. We must also ensure that the materials we develop are circular. The materials developed in this project utilizes the natural binders found in wood to ensure the end material can decompose in the same manner that wood would do in nature. This explorative projects aimed to create knowledge about the potentials and possibilities in waste streams from the timber industry, to better understand how the side streams could be utilized in architectural materials. The project explored two different but equally important directions of understanding the waste-streams. Firstly, how could these new wooden materials challenge our ingrained beliefs and expectations of wood, and secondly can the use of bio-based binders make sure the wood product is not down-cycled when it is re-composed into new materials. The final objective of the project was to point at different use cases for the sawdust, to ensure that more of the wooden mass, otherwise discarded and burned, can be bound in architectural materials The exhibition is a stepping stone in an on-going research in collaboration with the danish wooden flooring producer Dinesen, and is concluded with four distinctly different material types, materialized in four portals on view in the Dinesen showroom in Copenhagen