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Wood: The Latest Architecture and News

Digital Woodworking: Creating Structures, Furniture, and Surfaces Using CNC

Digital Woodworking: Creating Structures, Furniture, and Surfaces Using CNC - Image 13 of 4Digital Woodworking: Creating Structures, Furniture, and Surfaces Using CNC - Image 14 of 4Digital Woodworking: Creating Structures, Furniture, and Surfaces Using CNC - Image 15 of 4Digital Woodworking: Creating Structures, Furniture, and Surfaces Using CNC - Image 16 of 4Digital Woodworking: Creating Structures, Furniture, and Surfaces Using CNC - More Images+ 18

The automation of architectural design and rendering has been further accelerated by digital production tools. Tools such as 3D printers, assembly robots, and laser cutters, have all but perfected the design and construction process and have proven essential in optimizing resources, improving precision, and increasing control of the process.

In woodworking, the most frequently used digital production tools are milling machines or CNC (computer numerical control) routers. These tools facilitate the rendering of 2D vectoral drawings and 3D models, codifying them into instructions for the machine to follow and execute. Through this process, which starts with digital archives (typically created using design software widely known as AutoCad), milling machines and CNC routers can rapidly and precisely cut wood, producing ready to assemble pieces.

The Continuous Wood Ceilings Trend: Warmth and Texture Indoors and Outdoors

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Many practitioners and theorists of modern architecture favored large open plans, looming glass windows, and through both of these means, an unencumbered connection to nature. To do so, many iconic modernist buildings would use cantilevered roofs extending over glass curtainwalls, including Mies van der Rohe’s Farnsworth House and Pierre Koenig’s Case Study House #22. In the years since this trend was popularized, however, a seemingly niche yet cumbersome problem would present itself: the problem of continuous wood ceilings.

What's the Difference Between Carpentry and Joinery?

Wood is one of the most versatile materials used in construction nowadays and can be used for many different purposes, from beginning to end of the building process. Working with wood in a building requires specific skills that are very different from the skills of a bricklayer. Carpentry and joinery are the two main trades that handle wood in architecture and construction.

There is a fine line between the two, and people are often confused about which professional is the best suited for a particular job. This article will address the difference between the two practices to help you choose which one is best for your project.

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How to Build with Zero-Kilometer Wood? The Experience of The Voxel in Barcelona

Zero kilometer materials can be purchased locally, do not need to be transformed by large stages of industrial processing or toxic treatments and, at the end of their service life, they can be returned to the environment.

For example, wood from a nearby forest eliminates the need for long transfers, valuing local resources, and allowing architecture to lessen its environmental impact while committed to the landscape and context.

Brazilian Houses: 12 Projects With Reclaimed Wood

Reclaimed wood is wood that has been taken from its original application and repurposed. Old buildings such as houses, barns, and warehouses, often have to be torn down, resulting in demolition waste, which can be recycled and reused. Reclaimed wood can be used for many purposes, from cladding to building structures, and is very popular in contemporary architecture all over the world.

To get you inspired, here is a selection of 12 Brazilian houses that use this recycled material in flooring, walls, decks, bathrooms, outdoor areas, and stairs.

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Skylark Cabin / Barry Connor Design

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  • Area Area of this architecture project Area:  50
  • Year Completion year of this architecture project Year:  2020

There is Life After Demolition: Mass Timber, Circularity and Designing for Deconstruction

The first Shikinen Sengu was held in the year 690, in the city of Ise, Mie Prefecture, Japan. It consists of a set of ceremonies lasting up to 8 years, beginning with the ritual of cutting down trees for the construction of the new Ise Shrine and concluding with the moving of the sacred mirror (a symbol of Amaterasu-Omikami) to the new shrine by Jingu priests. Every 20 years, a new divine palace with exactly the same dimensions as the current one is built on a lot adjacent to the main sanctuary. Shikinen Sengu is linked to the Shinto belief in the periodic death and renewal of the universe, while being a way of passing on the ancient wood construction techniques from generation to generation.

The idea of creating a building that will have an expiration date is not a common one. In fact, the useful life of a structure is often given little consideration. When demolished, where will the materials go? Will they be disposed of in landfills or could they be reused in new projects? There are certain construction methods and materials that make this process easier. Others make reuse unfeasible, due to several factors. 

Before “Colonial” There Was Immigrant Architecture in North America

There is an architecture of the migrant. It is survivalist, built with what is available, made as quickly as possible, with safety as its core value. Americans romanticize that architecture as “Colonial”: simple timber buildings, with symmetric beginnings, infinite additions, and adaptations. But “Colonial” architecture is not what was built first by the immigrants to a fully foreign land 400 years ago. Like all migrant housing, time made it temporary and forgotten.

Concave and Convex: Designing with Curved Wood

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Sculptform Design Studio / Woods Bagot. Image © Peter Bennetts

Curved shapes have always sparked architects' fascination for evoking nature's beauty, fluidity, dynamism, and complexity. To replicate these shapes, however, is no easy task. From their two- or three-dimensional representation to their execution in their final materials, this represents an enormous difficulty, which requires technical expertise and a great amount of knowledge to achieve strong results. Thinking of new ways to produce organic shapes from natural materials is even more complicated.

In addition to this, working with a natural material such as wood carries its own set of peculiarities. Factors such as the species of wood, where the tree grew, what climate it faced, when it was cut, how it was sliced or dried, among many other variables, largely influence the final result. But it's hard for other materials to compare to the beauty and warmth that wooden surfaces bring to the built environment. If the appropriate processes are used, wood can be curved and remain in the desired shape - and for this, there is a number of known techniques which Australian company, Sculptform, has perfected.

Dear House / FUMIASO ARCHITECT & ASSOCIATES

Dear House / FUMIASO ARCHITECT & ASSOCIATES - Interior Photography, Houses, Beam, ChairDear House / FUMIASO ARCHITECT & ASSOCIATES - Interior Photography, Houses, BeamDear House / FUMIASO ARCHITECT & ASSOCIATES - Interior Photography, Houses, DoorDear House / FUMIASO ARCHITECT & ASSOCIATES - Interior Photography, Houses, FacadeDear House / FUMIASO ARCHITECT & ASSOCIATES - More Images+ 14

Kanazawa, Japan
  • Area Area of this architecture project Area:  56
  • Year Completion year of this architecture project Year:  2019
  • Manufacturers Brands with products used in this architecture project
    Manufacturers:  Louis Poulsen

House in Hikarigaoka / f a r m

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  • Architects: f a r m
  • Area Area of this architecture project Area:  99
  • Year Completion year of this architecture project Year:  2020
  • Manufacturers Brands with products used in this architecture project
    Manufacturers:  Jimbo, LIXIL , Toto
  • Professionals: Momi Architecture Office

I House in Izu-Kogen / Florian Busch Architects

I House in Izu-Kogen / Florian Busch Architects - Exterior Photography, HousesI House in Izu-Kogen / Florian Busch Architects - Interior Photography, Houses, BeamI House in Izu-Kogen / Florian Busch Architects - Interior Photography, Houses, StairsI House in Izu-Kogen / Florian Busch Architects - Interior Photography, HousesI House in Izu-Kogen / Florian Busch Architects - More Images+ 34

Itō, Japan

Could Tall Wood Construction Be the Future of High-Rise Buildings?

Across the globe, tall wood structures have begun transforming the world of skyscrapers and high-rise buildings, ushering in an important shift to an architectural practice that has traditionally been dominated by steel and concrete. Typically defined as wood-constructed buildings over 14 stories or 50 meters high, the past six years have seen over 44 tall wood buildings built or underway around the world. Notable examples include Michael Green Architecture and DLR Group’s T3 and Team V Architectuur’s upcoming 73 meter residential tower HAUT.