I think that I shall never see, a poem as lovely as a tree…
— Joyce Kilmer

Actually, a tree is simply an apparatus that facilitates photosynthesis. It puts the little factories, the leaves or the needles, up there out of the way of other things where they can do their job.

The tree itself is the plumbing that supplies those factories with water and its dissolved nutrients, drawing it up out of the ground, and the minimal structure that provides the maximum amount of operation with the minimum amount of material.

Wood is simply a by-product of this obsession of the tree with turning sunlight into oxygen and carbohydrates. This image of plumbing is, I think, quite useful in understanding the nature of the material that we know as wood.

It is a material composed of little tubular cells, attached end-to-end and parallel to each other and oriented along the (mostly vertical) length of the tree and its branches. These little hollow cells are made of cellulose and are bound together with a material known as lignum.

A second type of cell, which is much fewer in number, is oriented at right angles to the primary ones and allow for lateral fluid movement. These are known as rays and are more-or less pronounced, depending on the species, but are often invisible.

Trees grow from their outer perimeter and their tips, adding new layers of material. The active and lively layer is known as the cambium and is just under the protective bark of the tree.

The health of this tissue determines the health of the tree. As the tree grows, the woody tissue converts from active plumbing to the role of more dormant scaffolding structure. It goes from being sapwood (sap being the liquid that moves up and down) to heartwood.

The wood that we value is usually the heart (wood) of the matter. If we intend to use this material for the construction of things, there are a number of important considerations.

One is that wood is, in its natural state, quite wet. It is essentially plumbing, after all.

Once the tree is no longer alive, this moisture will seek equilibrium with its surrounding environment. It dries out. As it dries, the cellulose cells shrink in diameter. Not in length, only in diameter.

To complicate things, the shrinkage is uneven; with approximately twice the shrinkage occurring along the diameter of the tree as occurs along a path radial to the centre of the trunk, although this varies with the species of tree.

This change in the size (and weight) of the material usually needs to be predicted and accommodated by the wood worker. Once the wood’s moisture is in a state of equilibrium with its environment, the change in size stops and the material is stable.

If the drying out occurs too rapidly, the material will likely split. It is usually worth remembering that as the relative humidity of the environment changes with the seasons, the dimensions of the wood will also change. In Canada, this usually means that wood shrinks in the winter and swells in the summer, making doors and drawers stick or loosen and unsecured panels warp.

If solid wood isn’t allowed to change its dimensions, it may split (or burst things) instead. The splitting that occurs during drying is a vulnerability that wood retains.

In addition to the stresses of drying, this splitting can occur through other means. When we split wood for the fireplace we soon learn that wood only splits along its (original) length. The little plumbing tubes are driven apart.

To deform the cells across their circumference requires a completely different magnitude of effort. We use this characteristic as an essential component of our strategy when we work wood.

A different type of consideration is that trees grow the most in the spring, when they are fresh from their winter repose. Later, in the summer, the growth slows down and changes in character.

The early (spring) wood is usually lighter in colour and thicker in volume. The later (summer) wood is darker and occupies less space.

This contrast between the early and late wood provides a record of the age of the tree and the wood with a visual differentiation that gives it what we call figure. This varies hugely between wood species, with pine, for instance, having little visible figure, with ash having a great deal.

Color variation and the range of less usual structures of the cells contribute to this visual distinctiveness. It is also worth noting that the dimensions of the wood that is available will correspond to their source, the trunks of trees.

Natural, un-jointed, solid wood in sheets four-feet by eight feet, for instance, is not feasible. This is information that is very important to those of use who design for the use of wood.

What I’ve written here is a highly simplified description of a much more complex topic. Even so, I’m often surprised by how it is often not taken into consideration.

Paul Epp is professor emeritus at OCAD University in Toronto, Ont., and former chair if its Industrial Design department.

When we set out for a destination, and we know our terrain well enough, we may be lucky enough to be able to avail ourselves of a shortcut. There is something very charming and satisfying about this prospect: it’s a bit like a secret and we may even want to keep it that way. In my neighbourhood, I know the back lanes and it gives me a certain pleasure to be able to both leave and return by the back routes, unlike the uninitiated. It is also efficient. We attain our objective with less effort, and more quickly when we use our shortcuts.

When we designers talk about design, we are likely to describe a design process. Sometimes we will even put that into capital letter: DESIGN PROCESS, to underscore its importance. There are almost as many different descriptions of this procedure as there are designers, but we have a common ground. We all move through a series of phases, usually beginning with an exploration, which leads to an understanding and a definition of intent. Ideas are sought, evaluated, developed, prototyped and so on. Decisions get made. And this all will result in some kind of resolution in a communicable form.

The mind expands, then contracts

If we think about this process long enough, we will recognize that there is a pattern of cyclical expansions and contractions. We open our minds, expanding them to embrace as wide a range of possibilities as possible. And then we make decisions, contracting our options as we select the best results. Each set of decisions can set off another round of searching for opportunities, within the newly defined constraints. One tidy description of this is the double-diamond, with the diamond shapes suggesting both the expansion and contraction that we experience as we move through our exercise.

Another level of understanding about what we are doing is that we are shifting, sequentially, from left-brain to right-brain activities. We do one (defining/left) and then we do the opposite (exploring/right). And so we proceed.

An even deeper level of understanding will show us that we may also deviate from this pre-determined formula and use shortcuts. I will use the definition of intuition to describe what I mean by this: the ability to understand something immediately, without the need for conscious reasoning. Sometimes when we design, we seem to jump ahead and arrive at a tidy conclusion, without all of the intermediate steps.  It’s easiest to describe this as occurring through intuition.

It just feels right

It can feel a bit like magic. It’s as if we received some help from an unseen source. We may even choose not to talk about it, as though we cheated, or were caught out as lazy. But it can also feel very satisfying, just as it does in knowing where the shortcut is.

Culturally, we may have some misgivings about what occurs subconsciously. We tend to privilege that which occurs consciously and rationally. But we also know that what is unseen can also be powerful. Politicians are prone to describe their de-cisions, when the chips are down, as going with their gut feelings. However unattractive the description, we know what they mean. They are trusting their feelings.

I think that it might not be quite as mysterious as it sounds. We prepare our subconscious to both look for and to recognize useful things. We might call this spontaneous activity a form of pattern recognition. When what we are looking for matches up with what we have found, when the shapes correspond, we have a sense of immediate arrival.

I doubt that we are born with much intuition. Rather, I think that it is more likely to be the result of a significant amount of self training. We may not know we are doing it, but if we are interested enough in something, and pay enough attention to it and built up a large enough lexicon (getting to know the terrain), we are more likely to have what is called intuition.

There is danger here, though. All departures from the rational ought to make us a bit nervous. When we leave the well-known path for the scramble through the bushes, we may end up being unpleasantly surprised.

But in design, I think we all tend to take shortcuts when we can. We may not admit it, but we do. And so we should. If we’ve done our work, by paying attention, we’ve earned this option, and it can be very efficient and very satisfying.

Paul Epp is an emeritus professor at OCAD University in Toronto, Ont., and former chair of its Industrial Design department.

“She’s long, she’s tall, she’s six feet from the ground,
She’s tailor made, lord she ain’t no hand-me-down”
… from Jimmie Rodgers Blue Yodel No. 4

We usually now use the term hand-me-down when we are referring to something that has been used and is now being recycled, like children’s clothing. What we mean is that it’s being handed-down, from one size of child to another, smaller one. It’s a good system, although it’s got a bit of an edge to it, an implication that rich people wouldn’t need to do this, and if you are, you obviously aren’t part of the 1 percent.

But hand-me-down had, at another time, quite a different meaning.

It was referring to the difference between something custom and something machine-made, to the products of industrialization as opposed to the triumphs of skill and patience. Before shopping centres, and maybe even before department stores, or even the dominance of urban culture, goods were purchased from stores with high ceilings and lots of shelves. If you wanted to buy a pair of new overalls, for instance, you might say to the store’s proprietor: “Say Bill, hand me down a pair of those overalls, size medium, the ones up on that shelf behind you”. Hand-me-downs, indeed. There was also an implication of economic status attached to the term then as well. The rich wore tailor-made.

Our relationship with the goods produced by industrialization has always been a bit conflicted. As the Industrial Revolution was gaining traction in the mid to late nineteenth century, a wider and wider variety of goods were becoming available at better and better prices. That’s the good news. There’s always a down-side and there were a number in this case: the hollowing out of rural communities as labour moved to the urban factories, the redundancy of traditional skills and its resultant unemployment, the standardization of sizes, to enable larger volumes, and environmental degradation, to name just some of them. There was an aesthetic objection, well documented through the history of the Arts and Crafts movement, and also a social or status implication. The rich didn’t need the benefits of low price. They could have their goods tailor made, whether they were clothes or automobiles. They would be made to fit the individual, to reflect their status, their preferences and to differentiate them from the common man (or woman).

Design is a skill that is predicated on a certain amount of talent and a lot of dedicated time and effort. Like almost all other skills, you get better if you practice. The resultant skill is then quite broadly applicable. Although the design businesses are highly specialized, many designers jump fences. Graphic designers might design themselves a house, for instance, and textile designers might design some jewelry. Sometimes this polymorphism is the result of confidence and sometimes it’s a response to a challenge, or to deflect boredom. Often, designers respond to the opportunities that present themselves.

Designing is a lot like tailor-making, even when the intended user audience is very large and the intention is to produce goods that are hand-me-downs. The designer is challenged to provide the best fit, so to speak, for the problem being solved. The versatility and adaptability of the skill can apply to very small numbers as well as to large ones, which, as an example, Industrial Design is about. The resulting product may not be tailor made, but the process might be.

A lot of my career has been associated with furniture, in one way or another. Early on, I built a lot of custom furniture. Later on, I designed furniture for other companies to make. In either case, there were similarities to the process. The right steps must be taken to yield an acceptable outcome. In the latter case, a lot more time was spent on each step, as the consequences were much larger. And either way, it always felt a lot like tailor-making.

When I listen to Jimmie singing about his gal, I know which business I’ve been in. And it ain’t no hand-me-down.

Paul Epp is an emeritus professor at OCAD University in Toronto, Ont., and former chair of its Industrial Design department.

One of the many beauties of wood is their growth rings. These variations in the rate of growth, season- to-season and year-to-year, are a large part of what gives wood its visual interest. There are colour variations, with the wood grown early in the season, when growth is faster, being lighter in colour and thicker in width and the later growth being darker and denser.

In quarter-cut boards, these differences will appear as (almost) parallel lines. In flat-cut boards, there will be a much more varied display of arching lines, ovals, converging and diverging lines and other graphic interest. If we look at the ends of the boards, at the end grain, we see that all years are not equal.

Stories in circles
There were good years and leaner years too. Not so unlike our own lives, although we can’t display our history quite so easily.

That’s a pity. I take some comfort, looking at the growth rings, that I’m not alone in contending with difficulty. I’ve had easy times and harder times. Like all of us. It would be interesting to be able to see this, because we tend to forget it. Maybe not so much in our own lives, but in the lives of those around us. We would all display a pattern of variation, thick and thin. These patterns would tell a story, a biography of experiences. If trees could talk, they would tell us about good weather, hard winters, disease, drought, plenty, threats and blessings, visits and even reproduction.

All the things that we design and make have a history too. Their growth rings are not visible either, but, in a sense, they are there. There is the ring of dream, the inspiration that lead to the creation of this artifact. There would be a design ring, which would describe the activities and process that lead to the form and function being defined as they are. Manufacturing would have its ring, or rings. Material was specified, selected, transformed. Tools were used. A complex web of technology was probably invoked, even for simple things. Supply chains were created. Capital was put to use, arranging the complex decisions and aspirations of a business venture, forming its own distinct ring. Marketing would appear, and probably sales as well. It’s likely that plans were made, in support of these objects finding their eventual owners. This could be a pretty complicated ring, or rings, or wholesale and retail and transportation and distribution.

Layers of meaning
Once an object is acquired by its consumer, it gains a whole other type of ring. There is the joy of acquisition (or not). There are the rings of use, possibly reflecting years of prosperity, interspersed by years of austerity. Things happen in the lives of objects. They may go from being treasured to being ignored. And then eventually re-discovered as mid-century modern is now. There might be rings of damage and rings of restoration. There might be a ring for being discarded. And a ring for reuse in a circle of recycling or repurposing. There might be rings that reflect the emotional attachment that the owner feels. There will likely be rings reflecting different and sequential owners.

Collectively, these rings would tell the life story of an object just as the growth rings tell about the lives of trees. Archeology is a process that is kind of like revealing these invisible rings. Objects that were lost have been found and revealed as what they were, and also thereby gaining a new set of rings, or layers of meaning.

Does this have any relevance for designers? Yes, I think so. We are part of a much larger process that goes on and on. We have our ring, and it is set within other rings. If we do a good job, the chances are greater that there are many of them. Our work is part of a much larger story. That ought to give us some satisfaction.

Paul Epp is professor emeritus at OCAD University in Toronto, Ont., and former chair of its Industrial Design department.