In the Studio: Territories of Wood(s)

a piece of wave-shaped wood resting on its edge on top of a work table

Encompassing spaces both on and off campus, in and outdoors, the studio is where students in Territories of Wood(s) made their clearest statements about the sustainable potential of wood, via the dynamic act of studio making. Get a closer look below.

In the studio and the field

In line with RISD’s core creative ethos, the Sustainability Design Lab’s center of activity is the studio—a space for material inquiry, where designers think and amass knowledge through the process of making. The work of the hand is scholarly work. Research isn’t prologue to building and fabrication; building and fabrication are research—recursive, reflective, and iterative.

Throughout Territories of Wood(s), the studio was an expansive space, encompassing site-specific projects and exploration. Identifying, exploring, and testing happened at the source as well as on campus. Critically, it is through the studio that the ethical underpinnings of Territories manifested in ethically considered, future-facing design solutions.

two students in a studio work on a large cylindrical wood structure
a student carves down into a tree stump surrounded by green grass and other logs
a hand reaches toward one of many rectangular-cut wood samples, colored several shades of brown
a student perched atop a woodshop workstation adjusts a vise
a hand holds dirt and remnants of wood from a split tree stump
hands reach toward a series of arranged petri dish-like containers filled with fine wood particles
several people in a studio work on a wood construction project
a hand holds a piece of gray natural material near several other pieces of the same material

More information

Territories of Wood(s)
About the SDL