
Lately, we’ve come across some extraordinary uses for OSB – oriented strand board (also known as waferboard) – a cheap, strong, durable building material made from pressed tree chippings and resin. It’s generally been viewed as garbage, something to use for structure and hide, until open-minded designers started to explore its potential and beauty.
Architect Carl Turner’s use of it to clad the interiors of two barns borders on obsession; it is everywhere as itself: as walls, beds, sofas, benches, even an interior pod that houses a bathroom and utility room.

You can see many more of Turner’s OSB creations in Dwell’s slideshow.
This morning on DesignBoom we came across lighting made out of OSB by Federica Bubani:

…then we came across an unexpected marvel: an artwork by Margie Livingston called Study for Waferboard.

Writes Livingston:
I wanted the new works to do two things—surprise me, and point to their historical roots. And in this case, even the scraps left over from cutting some of my recent sculptural paintings, notably the paintblocks, have their uses—I’ve been reconstituting the scraps and shavings as flat shapes reminiscent of waferboard (OSB), a process that can be traced to Picasso’s collages….(read more here.)
Check more waferboard possibilites in our post Transforming Cheapo Materials with Paint. OSB can be beautiful painted: all random texture without the busy visuals.
Dwell photos by Christoffer Rudquist.
Related posts: the unexpected stylishness of walls of stacked logs
ideas hiding in plain sight: fab concrete ‘cloud’ wall
the secret of shipping pallet beds
pegboard 101: for tools, jewelry and beyond
d-i-y reverse painted glass as wall covering and…
transforming cheapo materials with paint