Local and yet exclusive, natural and yet high-tech: Spalted wood combines contradictions. This very special wood is characterized by patterns of fine black lines, which it owes to a fungus. What used to be a rare chance find in the forest is now a standardized manufacturing process β thanks to the collaboration between Koster AG Holzwelten and Empa.
What do you expect from a woodworking business? Precise work and beautiful products, perhaps furniture or a fine parquet floor. Large machines, but also a good deal of manual craftsmanship.
Koster Holzwelten, a family business in Arnegg near St. Gallen, offers all of this. In an outbuilding, however, the company shows a completely different, rather unexpected side. Here, in a time-honored, listed building, there are stainless steel containers, laboratories and climate and vacuum chambers. Sterility is a top priority here, and both humidity and temperature are strictly controlled.
This is where a unique product is born: spalted wood, which the company developed in collaboration with Empa. It all started with a few wavy black lines that Jakob Koster, CEO at the time, discovered on a piece of wood from his workshop.
Koster showed the piece to Empa researcher Francis Schwarze. The expert in fungi immediately recognized the drawing as a trace of a sac fungus. This inconspicuous fungus is primarily known as a hard-to-detect pest on deciduous trees.
