SUGAR MAPLE IN A BRIGHT TRIO WITH LIGHT AND GLASS

The newly designed orthopedic practice clinic in Freiburg, Germany, impresses with its light and spacious atmosphere: lots of glass and subtle colors, a creative lighting concept and clear geometric shapes in the furniture characterize all rooms. The most outstanding feature, however, is the magnificent Canadian maple – also known and traded as sugar maple or American maple – which makes the entire practice clinic appear bright and friendly. More than 250 square meters of veneer and almost 1 cubic meter of lumber were used for the interior finishing. The decorative real wood dresses almost all the cabinets, wall paneling and furniture. The successful design planning and the interior fittings of the practice clinic were realized by carpenter Markus Brunner and his team from the Heizmann Carpentry in Schallstadt. The veneer and solid wood in Canadian maple was supplied by the wood specialist Schorn & Groh.

The sugar maple provides not only the popular maple syrup but also a very decorative, predominantly fine and diffuse-porous wood with a strikingly uniform grain. The wood texture is characterized by a fine tangential quilting and a light but clear radial late wood striation, which is enlivened by a very thin, sharply defined and dark late wood. The sapwood is yellowish white to almost white and gradually fades from a light reddish brown to a golden brown.

This decorative wood can be found everywhere in the newly designed practice clinic: room-high cabinet units behind the counter are room dividers and filing cabinets at the same time. The glazed partitions rest on slim frame profiles made of solid maple and bring daylight into the deep rooms. Wall paneling veneered in maple creates a homely atmosphere in the practice's functional and x-ray rooms. Even the desks and writing containers are made of maple.

The requirements of the joinery for the wood supplied were concrete and demanding right from the start of planning: Markus Brunner wanted all the wood surfaces to create a light and friendly atmosphere, and the veneer to have a length of at least 305cm and a minimum width of 44cm. The veneer sheet should be book-matched – meaning it should be joined only once – and the pattern of the veneer should extend throughout the entire room. In addition, the solid wood should strongly resemble the selected veneer in terms of color. Considering the design concept, the choice finally fell on Canadian maple. The desired veneer dimensions are nothing unusual for this maple species. But it was a challenge finding a log that met all the customer's requirements and that had exactly the requested widths. Fortunately, thanks to the large veneer and lumber stock of the Karlsruhe-based specialist, this was accomplished without any problems. Since many of the wood species processed by Schorn & Groh come from the same growing areas, the veneer and solid wood also match perfectly in color.

The pre-selection of the maple veneer took place at the Schorn & Groh branch in Ehrenkirchen. Located south of Freiburg, not far from the Heizmann joinery, Schorn & Groh mainly sells lumber. The veneer inspection was therefore carried out using Schorn & Groh's online warehouse. The company began digitizing its product range step-by-step several years ago. This involves passing all veneer bundles through a professional system equipped with a high-resolution camera and photographing them. This way a digital and contactless veneer inspection and veneer approval is possible at any time. The final veneer inspection of the Canadian maple for the Freiburg practice clinic was done by carpenter Brunner "live" in our warehouse in Karlsruhe.

The reception counter with three workstations is both a business card and the center of the practice. The angled counter construction is veneered. The countertops are made of solid maple, which harmonizes in color with the veneer. Andrea von Malm, a lighting designer from Freiburg, was responsible for the dynamic lighting design. Based on the interior design plans, she developed a creative concept that does justice to the different uses of the space. Everything fits together in this conversion: lighting concept, furniture and surfaces form an extremely successful unit that is immediately noticeable and visible. And the selection of Canadian maple as the tone-setting surface could not have been better.