PR 36020 t
            30 July 2014

 OSB flooring - like you've never seen it before

                                                   Pictured is Fabien Danker in the timber pavilion
 
Norbord's SterlingOSB is a popular material in all kinds of applications. So it's no great surprise that architecture student, Fabian Danker, should choose it to create a floor for his Masters' degree project.

Yet Fabian's floor is like no other engineered-timber floor you've ever seen. Not only is it incredibly (and deliberately) uneven, but the OSB isn't even laid horizontally. It's installedvertically.

Doesn't really sound much like a floor at all, does it?

The floor forms part of a timber pavilion designed by Fabian, a 6^thyear architecture student at Northumbria University, to create a microcosm of Latin America for visitors to Newcastle's annual Vamos Latino festival.

The pavilion is designed to be assembled, collapsed and re-assembled in various locations throughout the festival's six-week duration.

With a parabolic plywood-framed superstructure, the pavilion captures sunlight to produce a warm, humid atmosphere inside.

A sound system provides suitable Latin music while lights animate the interior with changes of colour, intensity and movement corresponding to the music.

Meanwhile, the floor, an undulating waffle-textured structure comprising interlocking lengths of 12mm SterlingOSB, provides a surface upon which visitors can lie, sit or stand as they soak up the Latin vibes.

Fabian designed the floor by first carving a 1:10 scale model in oasis foam, then creating a 3D computer model before "slicing" it to create two-dimensional sections which could be laser-cut out of OSB.

Furniture manufacturer, Décor Panel, agreed to manufacture the components free of charge, while Norbord donated the Sterling OSB.

"I chose OSB because it's a strong material but also because it has a very low carbon footprint. I wanted a sustainable product; plywood is no good as it's all made overseas - but Sterling OSB is made in Inverness out of British product" says Fabian.

The floor structure is designed in 10 sections to allow pavillon to be easily dis-assembled and re-assembled in a new location. Each section is itself slotted together to create a three-dimensional unit ranging in depth fron 100mm to 500 mm.

For further information on Norbord, please call 01786 812 921 or visitwww.norbord.co.uk.

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