Wood architecture. R. Slavid.
London, Laurence King Publishing, 2005
treasure-house of historic fittings and furnishings for sale, known simply as Dacha'. More radically, Moscow practices Savinkin/Kuz'min and First Architectural Studio/ARP Studio have designed out-of-town homes that use stacked logs as a major element, but juxtapose them with concrete and steel. There is something shocking about the modernist cliche of a bright-blue swimming pool crossed by a steel and glass bridge when it sits in a log building. Russia, which has more forest than any other country, also has atradition of workmen skilled with axes, capable of adapting any element in situ to make it ftt.This craft approach still survives in many countries and is used on the most surprising buildings,for instance on Foster's Chesa Futura building in Switzerland (see page 70), where the international high priest of high-tech has used local craftsmen to cut larch shingles in a traditional manner Such pragmatism was probably behind the decision of atrio of young London-based architects, Silvia UllmayenAnnalie Riches and Barti Garibaldo,to choose engineered timber as the structural material when they experimented with the concept of designing, and partly constructing themselves, three linked houses for their own occupation.
TRANSGRESSING TRADITION
Some of the projects in this book are the opposite of pragmatic. Architects and engineers have pushed timberto its limits to create tours de force of structural engineering,elegant structures that also leave observers muttering/l didn't realize you could do that.'Yet there is a kind of transgression here.Yes, timber can perform magnificently and be used in more slender forms than anybody once imagined; it can span great distances and adopt graceful curves; it can be designed so that the traditional enemies of fire and damp and rot are virtually banished. Timber so often associated with tradition, with the vernacular can be a thoroughly modern material.
It can, but it isn't exactly easy One architect has calculated that there is a substantial cost premium in choosing to use wood rather than steel or concrete, simply because of the extra work required by the designer Steel and concrete are the materials that evolved to satisfy the ambitions of today's ever more demanding designers - and they still have the edge.We can now construct six-storey buildings in timber; but we will never see a 40-storey skyscraper with a timber frame.There are some magnificent timber footbridges, but we will never see a timber suspension bridge carrying six lanes of traffic over a river estuary. Timber may work well as a material for railway stations, but it will not be used to form the tunnels that carry those railway lines underground.
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