Tag: Wooden Architecture

A Fresh Take on Wood: Architect Kengo Kuma Changes the Game

Posted on by Jeff Easterling

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Criss-crossing slats, geometric assemblages of beams and latticework that lets in natural light and affords filtered views of the landscape are among the unexpected ways in which famed Japanese architect Kengo Kuma uses the timeless material of wood. Approaching architecture from a gardener’s perspective, Kuma takes issue with designers who seem to be “forcing their compositions onto nature,” setting out to work with it organically instead.

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Kuma has produced some of the world’s most striking timber structures, including the Besançon Art Center and Cité de la Musique in France with its checkered composition of wood and glass (below), and the nest-like Sunny Hills, a facade for a dessert shop.

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Working with smaller pieces of wood makes these designs more complex than conventional wooden structures, producing a softer effect that pulls in both the Japanese tradition of weaving and the country’s ancient joinery techniques.

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For example, Kuma’s Starbucks (pictured top) – located adjacent to one of Japan’s most-visited shrines – is made of 2,000 poles that are woven together diagonally to create a sense of direction and fluidity. With this artistic approach, there’s no way to avoid staring up at the wooden structure and marveling at its beauty.

New Landscapes of Wooden Architecture: The Timberization of Cities

Posted on by Jeff Easterling

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How will cities change in the future as wood becomes a viable material for skyscrapers and other large structures? The ‘timberization’ of urban areas is among the topics covered in the May 2014 issue of A+U Magazine, entitled ‘New Landscapes of Wooden Architecture.’

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Nine exciting and innovative built works in wood are explored, including the stunning Waitomo Glowworm Caves Visitor Center in New Zealand (pictured top), ‘Bear’s House in the Woods’ by Alberta Architekturbüro and Patrick Thurston (above), and the Makoko Floating Schoole by NLÉ (below.)

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Another notable inclusion is Finland’s highest wooden multi-story structure, ‘Wood City‘ (below.) The eight-story residential buildings in Helsinki will be the first massive-wood buildings in Europe, and built with modular technology.

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Many cities around the world are beginning to change their building codes to allow high-rise structures made of wood. Read more about the trend, as well as a 34-story wooden tower planned for Stockholm. A+U magazine delves into this topic and other aspects of wood technology – get the issue through ArchDaily.

This Week in Wood: 2014 National Wood Award Winners

Posted on by Jeff Easterling

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Standout wooden buildings from a variety of projects around the world have been announced as the winners of the 2014 National Wood Design Awards. Held each year by WoodWorks, an initiative of the Wood Products Council, the awards honor “outstanding projects that bring to life wood’s natural beauty and versatility in building design.”

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Among the 13 winners were the Federal Center South Building 1202, top, and the Cascades Academy of Central Oregon Campus by Hennebery Eddy Architects. The former, located in Seattle, inserted beautiful timber-clad volumes into a reclaimed warehouse to create high-performance, cost-effective and sustainable workspace environments.

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The Cascades Academy, in Portland, integrates sloping wood-covered surfaces throughout the interior. The James and Anne Robinson Nature Center in Columbia, Maryland (above) achieved LEED-platinum status using wood as its primary material. The new performing arts center at Reed College, below, is another top design.

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All of the winning projects “push the envelope in wood design.” Check them out at the WoodWorks website.

Traditional Construction, Modern Details: Wood Work by Gion A Caminada

Posted on by Jeff Easterling

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Architects and builders looking for fresh inspiration in creating beautiful modern structures out of wood should take a look at the career of Gion A. Caminada, a Swiss architect who has focused his life’s work on the village of Vrin in his native region. Caminada uses wood (particularly pine) in unexpected new ways, inside and out, pairing the local tradition with modern aesthetics.

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The architect’s focus lies in exploring how older methods of construction can be transformed for new uses to meet the needs of the present. Swiss alpine tradition is married with a sense of minimalism that perfectly spotlights the beauty of the wood that serves as a primary material for residences, hotels, community centers, observation towers and more. Caminada’s work runs the gamut from grand halls to humble cow sheds.

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This focus goes beyond construction techniques, translating common elements of historical structures in new ways. For example, at a girls’ boarding school in Disentis, Switzerland, Caminada built faceted wooden ‘cuddle corners’ for social congregation, modeled after the benches traditionally built around large stoves in Swiss peasant homes.

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It would be cool to see this combination of local tradition and modern architecture translated in different areas of the world, including the Northeast United States, where a rich history of wooden architecture has its own, very particular personality.

Angular House Extension Brings Wooden Architecture to Urban Paris

Posted on by Jeff Easterling

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All-wood additions have become a more common sight in suburban neighborhoods, and now, they’re popping up in urban locations, too. This modern, geometric wooden extension to a house in Paris contrasts with the more historical architecture seen next door and on much of the street. BANG architects is a single-story addition topping a two-story home to create a new central living space and terrace.

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“We also opted for wood as the main construction material – in pat in order to limit the weight on the existing house, but also to have great flexibility in determining the volume of the new space, and in order to reduce the environmental impact of the construction project,” say the architects.

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The addition is described as a heliotrope and was designed so that the windows look out onto the terrace and onto the classic Parisian plane trees planted along the avenue rather than into the neighboring buildings. Six meters of ceiling height are illuminated by a glass roof. The whole thing is clad in thin strips of untreated pine.

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Wood facades are showing up more often in modern structures, eliminating the coldness of steel and concrete. Not only does it make these buildings feel more welcoming, it’s also more sustainable.

Trend Watch: Wood is the Most Advanced Building Material

Posted on by Jeff Easterling

Cross Laminated Timber

There’s a lot of talk about the building materials of the future, as technology makes all sorts of hybrid and nano-materials (which can be made of wood, too) stronger, cheaper and more accessible than ever. But for all of those advancements, one of the world’s most ancient building materials remains at the top of the list: wood. Popular Science features an in-depth examination of why wood is the most advanced building material of them all – and how it’s going to transform city skylines around the globe.

The biggest step forward is the development of CLT, or cross-laminated timber. This isn’t some kind of plasticized or artificial wood product; it’s simply parallel strips of wood that are placed atop each other perpendicularly and then glued together to create enormous panels with steel-like strength.

CLT is cheaper, easier to assemble and more fire-resistant than steel and concrete. In an age of heightened environmental awareness, it’s also more desirable for the fact that wood is renewable and acts as a carbon sink. The strength of CLT beams make it possible to build wood structures taller than ever before, and many countries are changing their building codes as a result.

Much of the CLT that’s currently produced comes from sustainable forests, and a good percentage is made of beetle-damaged pine. Pine bark beetles are the single biggest threat to pine forests, but CLT ensures that the trees affected by this scourge aren’t lost. That makes it an ideal way to get a practical and lucrative use out of what might otherwise be considered a waste material.

Check out plans for large-scale wood skyscrapers and learn more about the top threats to Eastern White Pine and how these majestic, useful trees can be preserved and protected.

Image via: greenspec