WOOD-SKIN PLAYGROUND, AN OUTDOOR INSTALLATION IN BRERA DESIGN DISTRICT

In occasion of Fuorisalone 2019, WOOD-SKIN presents PLAYGROUND, an outdoor installation – Corso Garibaldi 73 in the heart of Brera Design District – to celebrate the street as connective tissue. For the Milano Design Week 2019, the sidewalk becomes three-dimensional, waves of different materials become first a seat, then a wall, a hut. Architects and designers are invited to discover the many characteristics of WOOD-SKIN products, new shapes, new patterns and materials for special and outstanding projects.

Mesh Sheets offer a new way to design curved, wavy, and free- form surfaces from flat sheets. Thanks to the variable size of the facets, the curve radius can become remarkably tight while still maintaining its fluidity. This game-changing technology unlocks the design potential of rigid surfaces, allowing the construction of elegant membranes with the same look, feel, and functional properties as lighter, more flexible materials like paper or fabric.WOOD-SKIN® was founded in 2013 to help architects and designers bridge the gap between the creative freedom of digital representation and the practical realities of the construction site.

With patented software-driven technology, WOOD-SKIN®, flat surfaces can be projected into the third dimension and into the digital era. And design ideas once thought to be too extravagant or expensive become both possible and affordable.

Architects, designers, and engineers with a shared passion for materials, digital fabrication, and software, which led us to challenge the technical and economic obstacles to creating complex 3D surfaces with conventional cladding materials like wood, felt, cork, plastic, and metal. That real innovation lies at the intersection of composite materials and digital fabrication, where technology becomes the enabling factor for new building methods and a new design grammar.

The WOOD-SKIN® process transforms rigid materials into 3D sheets of a “programmable” composite with the potential to be coded and given a specific form through a one-step fabrication process. The patented technology enables the panel to fold along “digital hinges”, much like origami.

From the flat state, the material morphs into the third dimension, where it can assume a range of forms and functions limited only by the imagination of the designer, without losing structural strength.As its name implies, WOOD-SKIN® was originally conceived to give organic form to wooden panels with a wide range of veneers. Today, thanks to partnerships with selected Italian and international brands, the process can be applied to many different rigid materials such as aluminium, solid surface or HPL, giving them a new three-dimensional life.