Skeleton
Wood Program 25-26, Aalto University
Site: Helsinki, Finland
Date: 10/2025
Supervisor: Pekka Heikkinen, Daniela Alatorre, Laura Zubillaga
Teammate: Shivani Shah, Francisco Pérez Bada
The skeleton consists of three three-dimensional wooden frames.
The objective is to design a wooden frame that can be assembled within 20 minutes and is compact, structurally robust, and simple.
The system must be flat-packed to fit within two pallets measuring 800 × 2400 mm.
What is a frame?
A frame is a load-bearing structural system composed of interconnected elements—typically columns, beams, and joints—that support a building and transfer loads to the ground.
Based on the availability of the materials in the workshop and aesthetics, we chose the dimension of the wood strip of 45x45x3000mm.
Joints Exploration
After defining the frame geometry, the focus shifted to the design of the joints for the wooden strips. Initially, this presented a challenge, as three different joint types occur from top to bottom, and each joint connects three strips arriving from different angles. The aim was to identify a consistent principle that could be applied to all joints.
Following several iterations and connection tests, a solution was developed: A fourth element that unifies and connects the three wooden strips.
Final Joints
- The fourth element approach.
- Simplify form.
Notch
- Combination of bandsaw and handsaw.
