ALIQUOT
[DEFINITION]
Pronunciation: /ˈalɪkwɒt /
NOUN
A portion of a larger whole
Mathematics A quantity which can be divided into another a whole number of times.
VERB
Divide (a whole) into aliquots
Origin
late 16th century: from French aliquote, from Latin aliquot ‘some, so many’, from alius ‘one of two’ +quot ‘how many’.
‘Aliquot’, Oxford Dictionaries. Accessed Aug 5, 2014. http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/aliquot
[CULTURAL INTERPRETATIONS, ENVIRONMENTAL IMPERATIVES]
Timber structures have taken many forms throughout the ages and across cultures. Each timber typology reflects the technology, environment and cultural values of their times. Timber structures play a large role in the architecture to which they belong – they simultaneously reflect light and provide mood, express the technology of the time, and provide supporting structure. Use of timber is thus compelling in architecture but the basic form of the structure has not changed significantly over time: many of the timber structures take the form of a post and beam of some description in a hierarchical manner. While our connections are more technologically advanced, the post and beam themselves are still apparent. Aliquot Timber questions this typology and asks what other form timber might take.
Timber is a malleable material in physical terms and thus has the flexibility to address multiple interpretations in a more cultural sense. Why might our current society be interested in timber? How does wood reflect our cultural values? What lies behind the compulsion to use timber? How might we speculate about wood today? In asking these questions, Aliquot Timber asks what a contemporary form of timber which is suitable to reflect our current culture might be.
[ECOLOGICAL FAILURE]
Ecological failures can change the landscape of resource use in unexpected ways. The Pine Beetle epidemic was an ecological failure which challenged the idea of the need to conserve wood. With the mass death of many trees at once, the best ecological action is to harvest and use this massive amount of wood all at once. If this wood isn’t harvested, there will mass release of carbon into the atmosphere, either by biodegradation or more likely by forest fires. The use of wood in built form allows the wood to store carbon over an indefinite period of time, mitigating the release of greenhouse gases from other sources. This strange conservation inversion leads to a desire to use more wood in a building to benefit the environment. This temporal change in imperative with regard to the resource leads to a different architectural design approach. Aliquot Timber questions how environmental imperatives in either the short or the long term might influence our contemporary interpretation of design in wood.
[OLD GROWTH, NEW GROWTH]
The physical form of trees is different in the new growth and the fast growth we have in today’s forests. The wood sources which are sustainable are second and third growth forests. These forests have characteristics which differ from timber used in previous generations. The timber of today is fast growing and planted closely spaced to grow tall and thin. This commodity timber is smaller in diameter and thus may be suited to a different type of design. Aliquot Timber will ask what type of design might this be and how might this influence the resource itself influence the architectural design?
Digital fabrication methodologies allow us mass customization. Digital design methodologies permit us infinite variations on a theme. Aliquot Timber asks what timber design using digital design and fabrication might be.
[CHALLENGING CONVENTIONS]
This studio will challenge the conception of wood as it is currently understood. It will take on conventional notions of wood in order to expand its use and investigate value added processes in timber in order to advance the state of the art and propose new uses and applications of wood in architecture. Aliquot Timber will ask wood to perform in a non-heirarchical and more flexible way, speculating on how to do this. We will research current state of the art experiments and processes in wood design today and speculate on the manufacturing processes and structural behaviour required to propose new forms and modes of designing with wood.