The form is a series of vertical and horizontal half slotted pieces, laid out to have as few seams while still keeping the 8 sections manageable to transport. Keeping the joinery tolerances tight meant that as each of the 8 sections were assembled, they became more rigid. To square the structure up we used the factory edge of the bending plywood as we nailed it to the exterior as sheathing and flush trimmed the rest.

Another critical component of the bookcase was integrating an “I SPY” style game into the bark. We incorporated 27 native PA animals! Instead of individually sculpting those forms, I cut them on the CNC from prepared vectors from the Drexel design team. We then filled in the remaining exposed areas with bandsaw cut pieces of “bark”. While the CNC could have cut these pieces, the spontaneity of shape and size needed to be a direct action and trying to create that in digital form seemed futile.

While the bookcase began to resemble a tree, I felt it was still 2-D and knew it needed more depth and complexity. This was achieved by grinding and removing parts of each piece of “bark” then adding a finish layer of putty which added texture while filling voids. We did not fill the panel seams as I wanted to hide and blend them once the bookcase was assembled in it final destination.