Digital Wood

In the ongoing transition towards a dematerialized world, wood is proving to be a key material to “tie” design at the solid state to design at the digital state. On the one hand, wood is as old as the mankind; on the other, its “anthropological” lightness is well suited to the light taste of digitality, meant not only as technology but also as implementation of new sets of gestures interwoven with digital ends (looking at the tablet while watching TV on the couch, placing your smartphone on the first surface encountered upon entering home, forgetting the phone on, etc.). From this viewpoint, this design competition invites designers to think about wood as a bridge between solid reality and digital reality, called upon to “warm up” digitality through its inclusion in the behavioural dimension inscribed in the system of furnishing pieces. More specifically, participants are requested to design chairs, tables, bookcases, shelves, lamps, etc., that will work as a daily support for the new digital sensibility, either by enhancing furniture with technological equipment for devices or by just providing an aesthetic counterpart to the digital-related behaviours.