Ashen Cabin (2020)
article⁄Ashen Cabin (2020)
abstract⁄Ashen Cabin, designed by HANNAH, is a small building 3Dprinted from concrete and clothed in a robotically fabricated envelope made of irregular ash wood logs. From the ground up, digital design and fabrication technologies are intrinsic to the making of this architectural prototype, facilitating fundamentally new material methods, tectonic articulations, forms of construction, and architectural design languages. Ashen Cabin challenges preconceived notions about material standards in wood. The cabin utilizes wood infested by the Emerald Ash Borer EAB for its envelope, which, unfortunately, is widely considered as ‘waste’. At present, the invasive EAB threatens to eradicate most of the 8.7 billion ash trees in North America USDA, 2019. Due to their challenging geometries, most infested ash trees cannot be processed by regular sawmills and are therefore regarded as unsuitable for construction. Infested and dying ash trees form an enormous and untapped material resource for sustainable wood construction. By implementing high precision 3D scanning and robotic fabrication, the project upcycles EmeraldAshBorerinfested ‘waste wood’ into an abundantly available, affordable, and morbidly sustainable building material for the Anthropocene. Using a KUKA KR2002 with a custom 5hp band saw end effector at the Cornell Robotic Construction Laboratory RCL, the research team can saw irregular tree logs into naturally curved boards of various and varying thicknesses. The boards are arrayed into interlocking SIP facade panels, and by adjusting the thickness of the bandsaw cut, the robotically carved timber boards can be assembled as complex single curvature surfaces or doublecurvature surfaces. The undulating wooden surfaces accentuate the building’s program and yet remain reminiscent of the natural log geometry which they are derived from. The curvature of the wood is strategically deployed to highlight moments of architectural importance such as windows, entrances, roofs, canopies, or provide additional programmatic opportunities such as integrated shelving, desk space, or storage.
|
|
| Year |
2020 |
| Authors |
Lok, Leslie; Zivkovic, Sasa. |
| Issue |
ACADIA 2020: Distributed Proximities / Volume II: Projects |
| Pages |
176-181 |
| Library link |
N/A |
| Entry filename |
ashen-cabin |
