Unusual foamy chair seats made from furniture factory shavings

Furniture factories generate a huge amount of timber waste – usually 50-80 per cent during normal manufacture. What happens to all these chippings, sawdust and shavings? In one factory they’ve been transformed to create a wild, foamy chair seat.

In collaboration with the American Hardwood Export Council, Marjan Van Aubel and James Shaw collected different types of shavings from a furniture factory, combined them with bio-resin, added water and discovered a chemical reaction that makes the wood waste expand to become a solid, foam material. They then dyed the mixture and applied it to the seat mould so that it rose up around the joints of simple, everyday ash legs and called their creation the Well Proven Chair. They might not suit everyone’s dining table, but there’s something pleasing about this unusual, growth-like furniture.