Sustainable construction using technical wood
Spotted: Wood has been used in construction since time immemorial. However, more recently wood fell out of favour as a building material, both because it was seen as less safe and less sustainable. But the development of technical wood has demonstrated that it can not only be safer than other materials, but more sustainable as well. In Spain, startup Woodea is working to demystify the use of wood as a building material.
Woodea is combining wood, an ancient construction material, with modern production systems to deliver sustainable construction at a faster speed and comparable cost to traditional methods and materials. Its projects use technical wood, which is wood that has undergone high pressure and high temperature treatment to render it more durable. It also has better technical performance than materials such as concrete and steel.
Woodea has completed an initial funding round worth €1.4 million, with support from investors in a number of areas, including construction, engineering, and financial services. The capital will be used to undertake Woodea’s first projects, including construction of 250 wooden homes.
Architects and designers are increasingly rediscovering the advantages of building with wood. Springwise has also spotted a 100-metre tall, all-timber building being planned for Zurich, and a process that allows manufacturers to 3D print a wood composite.
Written By: Lisa Magloff
The project was approached with a deep sensitivity to local context. “The intent was to first restore, then relate to and engage with the site,” stated the architects. “The design needed to emerge from the restored forest to find wide open plains through, in, and around the main house. The concept of the main house at Casa Loro was to create a modern tree house made with contextual materials that enclose indoor and outdoor spaces equally.”
IM-KM paid special attention to material selection and spatial layout, seeking to create a home in which each space is uniquely designed to enhance the client’s sensory experience: “As we designed each of these spaces, we wanted them to have unique qualities of sound, materials, and light, that become integrated components that enhance the user’s experience and create specific memories of the place.
“This was achieved by hierarchically separating the spaces by a series of steps and platforms that are surrounded by gardens that attract biodiversity. As you circulate, each space becomes gradually more intimate until you reach the bedrooms and their private gardens. The ocean and fountain provide different acoustics depending on which space or garden you are in, and the shade from the various trees and palms create shadows that move around with the ocean breeze.”
The architects sought to create a hierarchical sequence of spaces that would offer inhabitants a sense of escape as they transition between each living space. IM-KM explained: “The pavilions of the main house are all balanced around the central pavilion which contains the vestibule and indoor and outdoor living rooms. From this central space, you transition from the modern world to somewhere else, where you can forget your day, and just be on holiday.”
Utilizing LaCantina’s sliding door systems, the façades of each pavilion are fully operable. When opened, the perimeter of the interior spaces become permeable and create a single larger room including the adjacent garden spaces and the ocean at the horizon. “When passing through the modern pavilion — from the vestibule into the outdoor living room — you are compressed and released into the vastness of the outdoor living room which looks out to the sea and the surrounding playful roof forms. It is meant to be an exciting, all-encompassing transition,” said the architects.
Casa Loro powerfully demonstrates how smart material and product selection can enable a seamless transition between interior spaces and the surrounding landscape. IM-KM’s adept use of LaCantina Doors systems helped create a serene home that is intimately connected to the unique natural environment of Panama, while producing an open-plan layout that is flooded with natural light. The house is proof that, when the right building products are employed and the details are well considered, a “Best in Show” outcome is possible.
While the gaming and entertainment industry were early adopters of VR, it has been used across project types in architecture. The Suspension House was created by Kilograph to work with the natural environment around it, rather than fighting against it. To illustrate this relationship, their Virtual Reality experience portrays the house in nature’s many states. The user is taken on a trip through different key locations as the weather time of day changes. They created hand-sketched storyboards and a cinematic trailer rendered in real-time in Unreal Engine.
Mixed Reality (MR) integrates both VR and AR. It blends real and virtual worlds to create complex environments where physical and digital elements interact in real time. Here, both kinds of elements and objects are interacting with one another, and it usually requires more processing power than VR or AR. Mixed reality is gaining traction alongside wearable technology to create immersive environments in a whole new way.
