Jul 15th 2015

"Urban Wood" project featured on WGN Radio

WGN Radio’s “Outside the Loop” visited Paul Pettigrew’s Architecture & Furniture class in the M&M Building for a story on student “Urban Wood” projects utilizing wood salvaged from storm damaged trees. The conversation also included Edith Makra chairperson of the Illinois Wood Utilization Team who has been working with Pettigrew to promote the use of urban wood.

Pettigrew’s Architecture & Furniture class has used "urban wood" for furniture and functional object design projects starting in spring 2008. The work from the project has been described in numerous publications and exhibited at the Morton Arboretum; the Lobby of the Inland Steel Building; Chicago’s Center For Green Technology; the West Chicago City Museum; West Chicago’s Gallery 200; West Chicago’s Railroad Days; Chicago’s Guerrilla Truck Show; IIT Galvin Library's Small Room Gallery; and the Lubeznik Center for the Arts in Michigan City, Indiana.

IIT Architecture Student Cristian Yugsi, WGN's Mike Stephen, Professor Paul Pettigrew and Edith Makra of the Illinois Wood Utilization Team. Photo credit: Outside the Loop/ WGN Radio

Student projects have been included in the collections of the following institutions: Village Hall, Homewood, Illinois; WERC USDA Forest Service, Princeton, W. Virginia; Illinois Department of Natural Resources, Wilmington, Illinois; Illinois Department of Agriculture, Springfield, Illinois; Village Hall, Oak Park, Illinois; and the USDA Emerald Ash Borer Program Office, Des Plaines, Illinois.