YOUNG TALENTS
Brewed Furniture
Judith Burgard's idea was born as an experiment: Fundermax GmbH launched a cooperation project with the Burg Giebichenstein University of Art and Design Halle in the summer semester of 2023. The Austrian manufacturer provided the students under the direction of Professor Klaus Michel and artistic assistant Jacobo Cuesta Wolf with the eight-millimetre-thin wood-based material "Funderplan" for the implementation. "We were very lucky and got a lot of material. We were supposed to develop furniture with it. That was the only condition," says Burgard. As part of this collaboration, she designed "Instant", a range of plug-in furniture consisting of a chair and a lounge chair; other products such as tables and a wardrobe are still in the development phase. "The panel material has special properties. It can be used to create instant furniture that is sent out as a pattern. The material can be temporarily moulded by pouring boiling water into milled recesses. My chair has a small notch on the backrest for this purpose. Once the water has soaked in, the material becomes bendable and can then be moulded and assembled. After drying and cooling, it regains the same stability as before," she explains.
When asked how Burgard approached the design, she recalls: "The idea came on day one. I first tested a small scale, but the material didn't work on this scale. When I tried larger shapes without a tight radius, it suddenly worked. At some point I thought: I've always wanted to make a chair. When I realised it could work, I took a step back and spent weeks making lots of small paper models and patterns. All the models were plug-in furniture, made from one material and without complicated techniques. In the end, the decision was made in favour of a model with a curved backrest – the only logical solution." The final design consists of four parts: The largest part, consisting of the backrest and legs, is bent and fixed in place by inserting U-shaped cross struts. The seat is then mounted on top. All elements are interlocked, so no further securing is necessary. "The great thing about the material is that the whole tree is used. From the roots to the branches: everything is chopped up and pressed with heat and pressure using only the tree's own lignin, without any petrochemical binding agents – that's how the board is made. The material was ideal for my project. The boards are thin, but still very stable," says Burgard. The manufacturing process of the "brewed furniture" guarantees space-saving storage and logistics, and the material can also be fully recycled in line with the circular economy. In addition, its unusual construction is a pleasant change: instead of screwing the furniture together, it is simply being infused.
Judith Burgard is in her seventh semester of industrial design at the Kunsthochschule Halle. She is currently completing an internship with designer Christian Werner in Hamburg, who became aware of her through "Instant". Her project was honoured with the GiebichenStein Design Award 2023.
