Growing Building(s)
Graduate | Undergraduate
Studio | Elective
1st | 2nd | 3rd Year, 1st | 2nd Semester (Winter 2021)
Partners: Michael Kurt Mayer, Maria Teleman
Instructor: Dr. Naomi Keena
For our final studio, "The Trace and Memory of 2020: A Circular Quarantine Pod with a Digital Twin or Live Anthropological Tracing," we chose to call our project, Growing Building(s), because our research and design was primarily focused on the use of renewable materials that you can quite literally grow from the earth.
Below is an overview of a material flow chart and lifecycle of our quarantine pods. In a material sense, our design philosophy was largely to use as much wood and other renewable resources as possible in the construction assembly. In real life scenarios, architects would probably find it very difficult to sell the idea of mass timber for small-scale constructions, but we were looking to mass timber for its renewability and its biogenic carbon sequestration potential.
The callout first callout emphasizes the first stage of the material lifecycle, which is the geography associated with forest management practices in Quebec. The hatched region refers to the zones in the province where roundwood is actively being harvested. The carbon sequestration potential largely depends on this moment in the lifecycle. Carbon capture can only be considered a strong argument in our hypothesis if the carbon storage is not actively deterring the carbon capture potential of the remaining grounds. Concretely, a 2x4 can only be considered to be carbon negative if we are actively encouraging growth of the remaining individuals via our forest management practices.
The roundwood is processed as shown in the second callout. The width of the Sankey flow bars represents the relative quantity of that product being made and the density of the hatch represents the associated carbon lifespan. Lumber represents approximately a third of roundwood usage and its dense hatch represents its potential for longer-term carbon storage.
If used in building, lumber can serve as a structural material, cladding material, finishing material and a carbon store. Other biogenic products like hempwool can serve this dual purpose as well, acting both as an insulative material and as a carbon store.
Biogenic materials are prioritized in our pod design as much as possible. Some other non-biogenic components (and salvaged ones wherever possible) are inevitably used. Majoritarily however, we prioritize wood and hempwool for our building envelope. Once the COVID quarantine use phase comes to an end, the pods can become short-term housing like an AirBnB. Once that phase has ended, the components would be reused or recycled. The biogenic materials, like timber and hempwool, would be returned to the geo-biosphere, whereas the bespoke components would be incorporated into new building projects.
The building plan shows how the placement of the pods and configuration took the climate aspects of their location on Ile-Sainte-Helene into consideration. In this specific location, the building gets ample amount of daylight as there are no obstructions at the south of it while the north and west trees can be utilized to protect the pods from the stronger winter winds. Those trees also allow for privacy in the design of the interior courtyard.
Growing Building(s) started with the design of three different types of pods intended to accommodate various groups of users when used on their own while also allowing the connection of all three to create a larger dwelling. Rules for the design of the three pods as seen on the left of the axonometric were established in order to have a consistent language across all of them. Each pod has a roof angle reflecting the optimal tilt of 32 degrees for this location, four standard window sizes, lower and upper openings as well as a solarium for passive strategies and finally a floor area of 40 square meters.
The assembly is composed of a few layers, namely a DLT structure, hempwool insulation and cedar cladding, the lot bound by a shim and tenon bracket technique.
We developed the shim and tenon technique to encourage future disassembly. The forms of these two pieces lock themselves in place without using any external binding method, inherently locking each other’s freedom of movement in all directions. This allows for a sturdy plane for then screwing on the strapping and cladding pieces.
The horizontal pod connects to the semi-vertical one at ground level. We observe how they can be used as three separate pods, 2 combined with one stand alone one or all three at the same time. The pods also work together to provide an inner courtyard which can be used by all the users as a larger communal space. The vertical pod is connected to the semi-vertical from the second level, and the overhang of the vertical pod provides a small covered area in the inner courtyard.
The diagram below on the left is a material inventory of our pods. The exploded axonometric shows how the pods can be assembled and disassembled into their components, in theory, with the ability of being constructed off-site and then transported to site for assembly, and subsequently disassembled at the end of its life while maintaining the integrity of each material for its next use phase, whether it is to be reused, repurposed or recycled.
