Taking advantage of solid timber’s unique benefits, the Timber Café by BAKOKO, an emerging Tokyo architecture practice, is a proposal for a sustainable pop-up restaurant. The temporary building can be flat packed into a standard 40′ shipping container and erected with a crane in a mere day. Once assembled, this wooden box is remarkably self-stable. It does not need a permanent foundation, making it suitable almost anywhere. More images and architects’ description after the break.
Massive timber panels are a carbon negative alternative to steel and concrete construction. Sustainably-farmed timber offcuts are laminated in European factories into panels 3 meters wide by up to 16.5 meters in length. Ranging in thicknesses up to 250mm, the panels are robotically trimmed to the designer’s CAD drawings. Entire walls are cut in one piece and openings for windows and doors can be cut out in almost any shape. Once cut, the panels can be flat packed for shipment worldwide.
In order to minimize waste, BAKOKO has designed the restaurant’s seating and tables to be easily assembled from parts cut from the timber panels. The empty cut-outs become the window openings, bringing light into the restaurant. If the restaurant needs to be re-packed, the furniture can be easily disassembled and re-inserted into the walls.
