#making due

Discipline: Industrial Design

The mid-century modern industrial designers, architects, and artists, Charles and Ray Eames were notorious experimenters. Without any complex machinery, they were able to evolve chair design with very crude tools. They built their "Kazam! Machine" as a way to mold plywood. They were trying to find ways to push the medium of wood to create new designs and industrial applications. They made the machine by hinging two-by-four inches pieces of lumber, which were bolted together to withstand the high pressure needed for forming wood. It contained a plaster mold and an inflatable membrane. The device would be bolted together once the wooden strips and glue were sandwiched together against the plaster mold. The Eameses would continuously inflate the membrane with a bicycle pump to keep applying pressure. (1)

Jan 9