Material & Method

The invention of cross-laminated thin wood plies with adhesive—plywood—is an engineering solution to the long-desired goal of straight, flat wood panels. However, this technological promise often fails due to seemingly trivial but omnipresent factors: humidity, imbalanced loads, the anisotropic nature of wood fiber, and others. This design starts from the premise that this “failed promise” of technology is not a failure but rather a design opportunity.

Playwood is constructed entirely from warped plywood sheets—material deemed unusable and discarded by conventional building practice. Instead of forcing the panels flat or concealing their deformation, the project builds with it, treating warp as a formal and structural condition. What industry calls waste becomes a means of producing structure and shade through low-energy, high-sensitivity construction.

The structure is sewn and assembled through simple, hand-tensioned joints. The primary frame uses power tools only where necessary; the rest relies on holes, cords, and knots. The system privileges touch over torque. Each connection can be read, adjusted, and repaired without specialized equipment. Rather than enforcing precision, the process accepts variation as evidence of labor and care.

Use & Form

The wedge tent is a typology that persists across forms of festival infrastructure—canopies, enclosures, and tensile assemblies. We’re interested in how this form circulates—not only in what it looks like, but in how it performs across states of deployment, collapse, and reuse.

Conceived as a resting place for music festival goers, Playwood reinterprets this typology through tensioned plywood surfaces that lift and open to form shaded alcoves and seating. The structure’s geometry arises directly from the behavior of the material: curves follow stress, shade follows form, and joints reveal how load is carried.

Playwood proposes a construction model that is materially responsive and inherently repairable. Its parts are small, repeatable, and transportable. When disassembled, the components return to flatness and can be reconfigured in new contexts. The result is not a fixed pavilion but an adaptable method—one that endures through reuse, teaching, and repetition rather than permanence.