Smaram Recollections
Reclaimed wooden furniture
Role - Design and Graphic Development
Year - 2020
Please note that all information on this page is Confidential to Stapati and Smaram, and used strictly for educational purposes.
the background
The brand-new furniture line was to be introduced, with the aim of reusing wood from old dilapidated homes from Kerala, India.
Traditional Kerala homes generally consist of various several wooden members - for both structural as well as decorative purposes. Therefore, an average-sized home of XXX sq ft would consist of close to XX kgs of wood.
Elements of the traditional Kerala Home
The wood collected from these homes would be repurposed with close-to-zero additional treatment, to create contemporary furniture pieces, with a mix of different materials like mild steel and glass.
Process of creating furniture from traditional wooden elements
the idea
The name 'Smaram' was selected as an amalgamation of the words Smara - which means 'memories' and Maram - which means 'wood'.
The idea was to use every single piece of wood obtained in the harvesting of the house, regardless of the aesthetics of the piece. We followed the motto - 'Good material is endless, and where some may see a scratch or an imperfection, we see character.'
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This brand of furniture was created to celebrate the raw materials while paying homage to it's past materiality while taking on a new form and function.
The pieces were therefore created to carefully balance the old and new - stories that had been told, and the new ones yet to take shape.
product lines
Since the wooden members in each house had different purposes - like structural wooden beams and columns, and decorative pieces used for cornices and column capitals, the wood could be distinctly identified into two kinds - decorative pieces containing carvings and fine woodwork, and raw wood with no certain finishing work.
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The furniture was therefore divided into two product lines - the Art Line, which would make use of the decorative pieces, and the Svelte Line which would utilize all the raw wood members. The pieces in the Art Line would be exclusive - and one-of-a-kind, due to the presence of carvings which are usually present in a limited number, and do not generally repeat in exact form.
Svelte Line
the logholder series
All pieces in this line were to contain a metal base containing pieces of wood, which are not fixed to the base. In this manner, it recreated the function of a generic log holder. A triangular metal base was designed to hold the wooden pieces, with thin metal rods for legs to create a light weight design aesthetic.
Using this base and legs, all the pieces of the collection were designed with similar design characteristics.
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The first piece that was designed in the Log--holder series was the console. This consisted of an MS flat bent into a right angle, containing various pieces of wood within to create a tabletop.
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Following this, we created the single shutter storage unit, double shutter storage unit, coffee table, and bench.
double - shutter storage
single - shutter storage unit
Art Line
console
bench
coffee table
the prototype
The console was the first piece that was prototyped.
While creating the base, we quickly realized that the thin metal legs would not support the weight of the wooden tabletop. In our first attempt, the legs began to buckle when loaded with the wood. When we used a larger diameter of rods for the leg, we found that the torque created was causing the legs to sway.
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To combat this, we experimented with tying the legs together using jute rope in an attempt to prevent the swaying of the legs. This seemed to do the trick. We then created metal ties between the legs to help hold them in place.
bend in leg due to weight of wood
thin metal ties connecting the legs
jute rope tied to keep legs from swaying
wood
mild steel
structure of the console
the brochure
A modern monochrome palette was chosen to create a prototype for the product brochure. It was designed to include the material details. from where the wood was sourced, along with technical details of the construction of the piece itself.
