̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge - wood

House of moveable wooden walls promising cheaper, greener alternative to ‘knocking through’, wins award

ta385 — Thu, 22 Jun 2023 10:30:00 +0000

House-owners the world over consider ‘knocking through’ walls to achieve more open-plan living or changing layouts to accommodate new arrivals or circumstances. ̽��ֱ��results may be impressive, but they come at a sizeable financial and environmental cost. But what if it wasn’t necessary to demolish internal brick and/or plaster walls and build new ones?

In June 2023, researchers at Cambridge’s Centre for Natural Material Innovation unveiled 'Ephemeral', an innovative alternative using engineered wood, at the London Design Biennale. ̽��ֱ��team, including partners PLP Architecture, went on to win the Public Choice Award for EUREKA!, the Biennale's first showcase of design-led innovation from UK research centres.

̽��ֱ��project, led by Cambridge researcher Ana Gatóo, invites visitors to step into a home constructed around principles of affordability, sustainability, flexibility and adaptation. ̽��ֱ��flexible wooden partition walls – developed by Gatóo as part of her Cambridge PhD research – are made using kerfing, which allows wood to bend without breaking, the same technique employed in the construction of guitars and other stringed instruments.

̽��ֱ��resulting wooden walls are simple, resilient, foldable and movable, meaning they can respond to the changing needs of residents, for instance, as children are born or leave the nest; as age or mobility bring changing requirements; or as homeworking patterns change.

Watch a short film about the project

Gatóo says: “Self-assembly and modular furniture have improved so many people’s lives. We’ve developed something similar but for walls so people can take total control of their interior spaces.”

“If you have lots of money, you can hire a designer and alter the interiors of your house, but if you don't, you're stuck with very rigid systems that could be decades out-of-date. You might be stuck with more rooms than you need, or too few. We want to empower people to make their spaces their own.”

̽��ֱ��team’s ‘rooms of requirement’ provide elegant, affordable solutions which can be built into the fabric of the building from its first design, or seamlessly retrofitted – avoiding the mountains of carbon associated with demolition and reconstruction.

Gatóo says: “We’re using engineered timber, which is affordable and sustainable. It's a natural material which stores carbon, and when you don’t need it anymore, you can make something else with it. So you are creating minimal waste.”

Gatóo and her colleagues are based in the ̽��ֱ��’s Centre for Natural Material Innovation, a world leader in research into innovative and sustainable uses of timber in construction.

̽��ֱ��team emphasises that their system could be used anywhere in the world, in workplaces as well as in homes, and the researchers have already had encouraging conversations with industry, including with affordable housing developers in India.

Gatóo says: “I’ve worked in development and post-disaster housing with NGOs in many countries around the world, always using sustainable materials. When I started my PhD, I wanted to merge making housing more affordable and social with technical innovation and sustainability. This is what our cities of the future need – caring for people and the environment at the same time.”

Implemented at scale, this innovation could change the construction industry for the better, empowering people to adapt their spaces to their needs while slashing housing costs and overcoming some of the hurdles which the construction industry must tackle to be part of a sustainable future.

Working with Cambridge Enterprise, the research team is seeking industry and policy partners to further advance product feasibility for industry-wide adoption.

̽��ֱ��project is supported by PLP Architecture, ̽��ֱ��Laudes Foundation, the Future Observatory and the AHRC Design Accelerator.

Cambridge architects have won a public choice award at the London Design Biennale for a prototype home constructed with flexible wooden partition walls which can be shifted to meet the changing needs of residents. ̽��ֱ��invention aims to reduce waste and carbon while also improving living conditions for those who cannot afford expensive refurbishments.

This is what our cities of the future need – caring for people and the environment at the same time

Ana Gatóo

Ron Bakker

Ephemeral exhibit at the London Design Biennale 2023

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Timber skyscrapers could transform London’s skyline

sjr81 — Fri, 08 Apr 2016 08:33:58 +0000

Researchers from Cambridge ̽��ֱ��’s Department of Architecture are working with PLP Architecture and engineers Smith and Wallwork on the future development of tall timber buildings in central London.

̽��ֱ��use of timber as a structural material in tall buildings is an area of emerging interest for its variety of potential benefits; the most obvious being that it is a renewable resource, unlike prevailing construction methods which use concrete and steel. ̽��ֱ��research is also investigating other potential benefits, such as reduced costs and improved construction timescales, increased fire resistance, and significant reduction in the overall weight of buildings.

̽��ֱ��conceptual proposals currently being developed would create over 1,000 new residential units in a 1 million sq ft mixed-use tower and mid-rise terraces in central London, integrated within the Barbican.

Dr Michael Ramage, Director of Cambridge’s Centre for Natural Material Innovation, said: “ ̽��ֱ��Barbican was designed in the middle of the last century to bring residential living into the city of London – and it was successful. We’ve put our proposals on the Barbican as a way to imagine what the future of construction could look like in the 21st century.

“If London is going to survive it needs to increasingly densify. One way is taller buildings. We believe people have a greater affinity for taller buildings in natural materials rather than steel and concrete towers. ̽��ֱ��fundamental premise is that timber and other natural materials are vastly underused and we don’t give them nearly enough credit. Nearly every historic building, from King’s College Chapel to Westminster Hall, has made extensive use of timber.”

Kevin Flanagan, Partner at PLP Architecture said “We now live predominantly in cities and so the proposals have been designed to improve our wellbeing in an urban context. Timber buildings have the potential architecturally to create a more pleasing, relaxed, sociable and creative urban experience.

“Our firm is currently designing many of London’s tall buildings, and the use of timber could transform the way we build in this city. We are excited to be working with the ̽��ֱ�� and with Smith and Wallwork on this ground breaking design- and engineering-based research.”

̽��ֱ��tall timber buildings research also looks towards creating new design potentials with timber buildings, rather than simply copying the forms of steel and concrete construction. ̽��ֱ��transition to timber construction may have a wider positive impact on urban environments and built form, and offers opportunities not only to rethink the aesthetics of buildings, but also the structural methodologies informing their design as well.

Just as major innovations in steel, glass and concrete revolutionised buildings in the 19th and 20th centuries, creating Joseph Paxton’s Crystal Palace and the Parisian arcades described by Walter Benjamin, innovations in timber construction could lead to entirely new experiences of the city in the 21st century.

̽��ֱ��type of wood these new buildings would use is regarded as a ‘crop’. ̽��ֱ��amount of crop forest in the world is currently expanding. Canada alone could produce more than 15billion m³ of crop forest in the next 70 years, enough to house around a billion people.

At present, the world’s tallest timber building is a 14-storey apartment block in Bergen, Norway. ̽��ֱ��proposals presented to Johnson included concepts for a timber tower nearly 300m high, which would make it the second tallest building in London after ̽��ֱ��Shard.

Dr Ramage added: “We’ve designed the architecture and engineering and demonstrated it will stand, but this is at a scale no one has attempted to build before. We are developing a new understanding of primary challenges in structure and construction. There is a lot of work ahead, but we are confident of meeting all the challenges before us.”

Perhaps the most obvious concern for potential residents of homes built primarily from timber is fire risk. However, the team involved in the project said the proposed building would eventually meet or exceed every existing fire regulation currently in place for steel and concrete buildings.

Recent research has also shown that timber buildings can have positive effects on their user and occupant’s health. Some recent studies have also shown that children taught in schools with timber structures may perform better than in those made of concrete.

̽��ֱ��designs for the Barbican is the first in a series of timber skyscrapers developed by Cambridge ̽��ֱ�� in association with globally renowned architects and structural engineers with funding from the UK’s Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council.

London’s first timber skyscraper could be a step closer to reality this week after researchers presented Mayor of London Boris Johnson with conceptual plans for an 80-storey, 300m high wooden building integrated within the Barbican.

If London is going to survive it needs to increasingly densify. One way is taller buildings. We believe people have a greater affinity for taller buildings in natural materials rather than steel and concrete towers.

Michael Ramage

Conceptual image of how the building would look as viewed from the River Thames

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