Wood based plastics

Opportunities and risks of an alternative, renewable thermoplastic material for product design. As part of the exhibition ‘Postfossil Design – Towards Sustainable Product Design’, held in the autumn of 2012 at the Forum Schlossplatz Aarau, we launched a long-term evaluation of the thermoplastic material Arboform. As critical observers of the traditional plastics industry we are taking on an alternative and renewable resource, aiming to work out its characteristics, its advantages and disadvantages, as well as its potential.
The first step was getting to know the material and its fundamental characteristics using a simple test set-up. We then contacted the Plastics Training and Technology Center (KATZ) in Aarau, where we carried out further experiments in direct collaboration. In addition to experiments on the material, we also used the exhibition and workshop to explore useful areas of application for the material. The first important discovery we made was the material’s great potential especially in combination with solid wood, which led us to the question: how can solid wood and Arboform complement each other innovatively in a new product?