Storage, seating or workspace – KU students’ woodwork merges ingenuity and versatility

Karachi

Just a month into the new semester, students of Karachi University’s Visual Studies department have been exceptionally busy. The reason is not a burgeoning academic load, rather one related to an almost personal drive for change and positive transformations.

A venture initiated last year with the revamping of a wasted space into a creative studio using recycled materials has, this year around, been focused on transforming the varsity’s ever-popular Foundation Hall.

Led by their teacher Asim Mehdi Kazmi, the students spent around three weeks building multipurpose wooden boxes that have been placed around the hall. Unlike last year’s project which was geared towards facilitating visual arts students, the end product this time can be used by the entire department.

“Last year, we had a space which could be transformed and we did what we could. This time around, we didn’t really have that — there is a space outside the department but we would have needed the management’s consent to modify it. Hence, we shifted our focus to the Foundation Hall; it needed something which could be used for sitting, working or other general activities, and these multi-use boxes will help in that regard,” narrated Kazmi.

Explaining the boxes and their uses, he said that the 65 to 70 boxes created by the students can be used for storage, seating or as individual workstations. Made using wood from the ‘kikar’ tree – a wood type that lends increased strength and durability to the boxes – the truly unique aspect of the boxes’ design is that not a single nail has been used to hold the structure together. Rather, the students have utilised 18 wooden joints to assemble each box.

“The wood used is not easy to handle in terms of cutting and drafting. Orders for the type of boxes these students have produced are often declined by the most skilled of carpenters,” Kazmi pointed out.

As for the costs, he explained that each box had been made by a pair of students, with each contributing Rs750 for the wood, glue, polish and other items needed. “Each box has cost Rs1,500. If the same design was to be available in the market, it would cost no less than Rs5,000.”

With students from textile, media, graphic and industrial design, architecture, industrial design and Islamic arts enrolled in the foundation year, the aim of the project – part of their course titled ‘Material and Process’ – is to help students learn ways of putting different materials to effective use.

The boxes, at the current stage, carry no outer design or motifs. As Kazmi explained, this is because,

down the line, the same students would be working with metals to carve metallic designs for the boxes, a project they hope would help add life to the much used hall.