Thursday, April 23, 2015

Moulding Growing Trees Into Furniture

Wooden furniture might not strike you as particularly unsustainable for the environment. But consider all the energy wasted by growing a tree for 60 years, chopping it down, and shipping it to a factory, where it will get further pulverized only to be re-shaped into a usable piece of furniture.

 Gavin Munro, a furniture designer based in Derbyshire, England, has found a way to cut out all the steps after the growing. His company, Full Grown(http://fullgrown.co.uk/), uses specially designed plastic frames and strategic grafting to mold young willow, oak, ash, and sycamore trees into a chair, table, mirror, or lamp.

The end result is a sturdy piece of furniture made of a single, continuous piece of wood without joints or the need for any assembly.

On a 2.5 acre farm in Wirksworth Munro, 39, tends and sculpts a furniture forest of 400 trees, divided by wood type and intended object.

Hologram Protest In Spain

On the night of April 10, the streets of Madrid swarmed with protestors. They were demonstrating en masse against a series of highly-controversial Spanish laws which, once in effect, will severely limit the ability to protest in that country. But, while the rally was both well attended and vociferous in its opposition to the new legislation, it was perhaps most noteworthy for the fact that nearly everyone in attendance—reportedly 18,000 total—were not really “there” at all. They were, instead, holograms, projected in front of Spain’s Cortes Generales parliamentary building for the first holographic protest of its kind.
 The event was organized as part of Holograms por la Liberdad, a movement designed to demonstrate widespread opposition—reportedly as high as 82 percent—against a trio of dramatically restrictive laws set to go into effect on July 1. The laws would impose steep fines on anyone caught engaging in a number of activities, including photographing the police, protesting outside government buildings, and even wearing a hoodie while engaged in public demonstrations. The laws come at a time when freedom of expression throughout Spain is seen by many as being under attack on multiple fronts.