Independent Activity Period

RENEW Tropical WOOD - Introduction

This IAP  tackled environmental challenges under the research area of Cities and examined the relation between materials and the construction of contemporary urban environments. It  explored the application of renewable alternatives to the predominant use of steel and concrete in current construction. In the rapidly growing Southeast Asian cities wood has largely disappeared from the built environment. Only after its recent global revival, it has also gained massive interest in cities like Singapore and is slowly reconsidered as a serious alternative to concrete and steel. While the technological inventions in the area of Mass Engineered Timber (MET) have been significant, the knowledge on tropical timber, the different species and their technical properties is scarce. ‍

List of Objectives

• Document the sourcing of timber and the environment with the support of digital scanning
• Document the processing of the raw material to different types of production processes
• Experiment with the material in design studies, record the possible intersections of manual crafts and digital design and fabrication technologies
  

Itinerary

6th to 12th Jan 2020

Day 1 Departure Singapore

Day 2 Kota Kinabalu, trip to forests and survey on sourcing and harvesting

Day 3 Documentation and 3d scanning

Day 4 Design study workshop - design experiments

Day 5 Design study workshop - physical experiments

Day 6 Design study workshop - workshop presentation

Day 7 Arrival in Singapore

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