OSW: OPENSOURCEWOOD
Open Source Wood is an idea that intends to accelerate and advance development in digitally-fabricated wood solutions for the built environment, driving growth for the forestry industry and potentially reducing embodied-energy emissions associated with the construction sector.
OSW is conceived as a platform to encourage, promote and freely share open source design that can be digitally distributed and globally reproduced. OSW builds on the conviction that multidisciplinary approaches ignite innovation, and that sharing knowledge openly and freely, encourages progress.
There’s incredible growth potential in digital fabrication, as it has given design the power of being shared, improved, and locally produced in a systematized way. Craftsmanship has evolved to crafts-machine-ship, and in so, to a level of precision no man could accomplish.
In a tangible way, OSW is as a digital repository where open-source and proprietary design can be freely shared or sold (respectively), providing complete wood based solutions that could, for example, combine an openly designed digital joint with a proprietary structural screw or connector.
Wood is a renewable, highly efficient product, that has long embodied design in the built environment, from its smaller decorative form, to its larger structural role. OSW aims to provide locally fabricated solutions that can range from a desktop object, a chair or a house, to a complex structural building system. Solutions that can be adapted to serve different needs, that can be modified to be more efficient, where each instance of production has the possibility to be unique and improve upon its predecessor.
Open Source Wood must also be envisioned as non-profit initiative with the purpose of encouraging, promoting and financing open source design, initiative that could be potentially backed by different stake holders and interested parties (Forestry Industry, Researchers, CNC Manufacturers, Connectors Manufacturers, BIM Partners, among others).
The ideas behind open-source design are not new. I argue they date back to the 1970’s when they were discussed as Adaptable Architecture, and they are specially interesting today as technology advancements are making them a reality.
Wood as a building material can greatly capitalize from backing open source design, as it has the potential to drive growth for the forestry industry, opening wood to a new future market: the so called “4th industrial revolution”. OSW embraces the need for industry growth as it is crucial to achieve truly competitive prices, and in doing so, increase access to openly designed wood solutions.
OPENSOURCEWOOD.org fue la idea que participó como finalista de la versión para estudiantes del Schweighofer Prize 2017, premio de innovación en madera de la industria forestal europea.
