Cork Remade
Cork Remade is a collection of cork lamps designed during The Winter Residency - an artist-in-residence program for woodworkers in the Philadelphia region designed to promote the use of reclaimed materials in art. Sponsored by The Museum for Art in Wood and NextFab, a single residency fellow is given 8 weeks to research and complete a project of their choosing using sustainable materials. My goal was to investigate cork: a wood product with zero-waste potential and highly sustainable harvesting practices owing to its ecological and physical properties.
Cork is a wood material which comes from the bark of the cork tree - a tree native to coastal Mediterranean regions such as Portugal, Spain, and Morocco. It has been used for thousands of years in production of wine-stoppers and other products due to its incredible physical properties, most notably its water and fire-resistance. When cork is harvested, the cork tree remains standing and is allowed to continue growing and producing more bark. After wine stoppers are cut out of the bark, all excess cork is then ground down and pressed into blocks. This process makes cork a highly efficient and sustainable material, providing a unique approach for the Winter Residency's theme of reclaimed wood.
The goal of the project was to produce lighting objects using agglomerated cork - the raw material composed of excess bits from the initial harvesting process. While the lathe was primarily used to create designs from the agglomerated cork, the leftover shavings would be saved and later reconstituted back into new forms using a urethane adhesive binding agent. Through this process of reuse, I aimed to produce a zero-waste collection of designs to showcase cork’s unique properties for durability, workability, and repossession. The collection includes five lamps ranging from desktop to floor sizes, with the largest being made almost entirely out of recycled cork.
Henry stands next to the original 36" x 24" x 10" block from Amorim Cork
lathe-turned studies
shavings to be collected for reuse
cork and binder mixture ready to be cast in a two-part mold. an armature is laid down to act as a conduit for the lamp wiring.
Cork Lamp no. 5; recycled cork, agglomerated cork, glass shade; 24" W x 9" D x 72" H
Cork Lamp no. 3; agglomerated cork, glass shade; 8" W x 20" H
CNC-carved details. Drawn in Adobe Illustrator and carved using the ShopBot rotary indexer.
Cork Lamp no. 4; agglomerated cork, glass shade; 9.5" W x 55" H
Cork Lamp no. 2; agglomerated cork, glass shade; 6.5" W x 18" H
Cork Lamp no. 1; agglomerated cork, glass shade; 7" W x 16" H
Recycled cork binding agent testing. From left to right: Titebond II wood glue, Trassig Aromatic Binder (urethane adhesive), Blue Rust-o-leum latex paint and Trassig Aromatic Binder, Wheat paste.