Second Nature explores the hidden potential of the sawing waste from wood processing industry. All of the fall off—the bark and the sapwood—are normally regarded as the waste during the process of cutting a log into dimension lumbers. The design aims to change such irregular material from being unwanted to becoming a specific feature by utilizing it in the furniture design.

Second Nature project originates from the thought questioning where the rest part of the wood goes when the timer gets sawn and cut in standard increments. The main intend of the project is to turn those offcuts back to an abstraction of a tree. In this case, I tried to arrange them to form the contour of a tree when viewed from certain sides. The design then fused them with opposing, sleek wooden structure, aiming to highlight the raw character of the natural bark.

Utilizing the existing dimensions in the process of sawing wood, handpicked waste wood particles were put together to resemble the arc of the rounded trunk. They were then converted into a series of furniture including a three-tier shelf and a stool, which were exactly the original size and incision of the left-over material.​​​​​​​

The shelf comprises splits of waste wood with its bark and three shelves of wood grid system. Every single sapwood connects to the grids, which makes the structure reinforced and gives an elegant appearance. As for the stool, it makes use of smooth cut surfaces of offcuts to form the seat while the bark is underneath. The side of the stool shows the profile that is similar to the cross section of a trunk suspending in the air.​​​​​​​

​Most of people probably know little about the sawing procedure of general mills and how many offcuts would generate during the entire process. Those so-called sawing waste are mechanically reduced to small chips to produce wood-based construction materials like particle board or plywood, yet most of them are simply burned. Yet for me, it could be, and in fact is, still wood.​​​​​​

Chialing Chang

Chialing Chang is a young designer currently based in Taipei, Taiwan. She is now focusing on various material-related experiments and stuffs with pure functional and aesthetic features. Rather than carefully undertake the design, Chialing prefers taking a series of observations within life, drawing insights and understandings from them, and then manifesting those into her works.

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