Ground to crown: Advocating the latent potentials of undervalued fibre composites. (1st June 2020)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Birch, Patrick W. L.
• Is Part Of: Design ecologies. Volume 9:Number 1/2(2020)
• Page Start: 67
• Page End: 100
• Publication Date: 2020-06-01
• Subjects: Design -- Environmental aspects -- Periodicals; Architecture -- Environmental aspects -- Periodicals; Sustainable architecture -- Periodicals; Sustainable design -- Periodicals; 720.47
• DOI: 10.1386/des_00005_1
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 2043-0698

Abstract

Understood as anisotropic in structure, variation in timber form was traditionally accommodated and often elevated in strategic applications. However, contemporary applications of wood act to suppress the value of timber's integrated material composition, treating wood simply as mass to be divided and reassembled into homogeneous building components. Influenced by a series of mechanical inputs, including self-loading, wind loading and structural damage, wood is actively developed during its growth as a complex structural material whose internal composition serves not only as a tree's metabolic infrastructure but also as its load-bearing structure. In this way, trees adaptively respond to the unique conditions of their environment in a manner that architecture regularly fails to, given the latter's preoccupation with prescribed formalism. Understanding the efficiency with which trees are able to develop their forms and evenly distribute mechanical stresses across their surfaces is an area of research that has architectural potential but has not been widely explored. While concepts of standardization and regularity fit well into a model of measured global commerce, they do little to take advantage of the unique material potentials of wood in design. Furthermore, board-form components fail to speak to the anisotropic structure and integrated growth of wood fibre in a self-optimized, adaptive organic system; the internal grain structure of wood embodies the structural forces running throughout the tree. Acknowledged as embedded structural optimizations rather than structural defects, these non-standardized patterns can be treated as forms to be praised rather than avoided, integrating the autonomy of the non-human world into the design process. Thought of this way, one could argue that wood is, in fact, superior to homogenized building materials in its highly material efficient, adapted biomechanical structure, developed free of human labour.