Historically, two-dimensional world maps, with their inevitable distortions in the sizes and shapes of the oceans and the continents, have reflected the social and cultural assumptions of the times in which they were created.

Even as technology took us from the era of the two-dimensional page into that of the two-dimensional screen, little changed: the world map remained distorted. Finally, now, as we enter an era in which maker robots can take us into the third dimension, we have a way to banish these distortions to history. Since the Earth refuses to be flat, let it be round.

I’m on a quest to carve beautiful, tactile, fully three-dimensional maps and globes out of wood. Based in the mountain town of Rossland, British Columbia, I’ve been looking for a way to reflect new social and cultural assumptions – more environmentally aware, more conscious that this planet is our home – by carving the world into wood using CNC router technology .