Josep Ferrando

Reflections on Wood

Join us on 13 October at 14:00 (Brazil)/19:00 (Switzerland) for a webinar, organized in collaboration with Insight Architecture, on flexible systems and wooden constructions for challenging environments.

Building a system indicates that the sum of the parts builds space. And its attractiveness is revealed by the simultaneous, indeterminate and controlled repetition of a new measure. Designing the rhythms and sequences that articulate the relationship between full and empty, between matter and air. A system is flexible when it accumulates the maximum amount of algorithms generating complex but uncomplicated spaces. These organizations, composed of several parts related at different levels by similarity and reiteration, make up a complex and constantly diverse set.

The relationships in the system can be: geometric, structural, perceptive, optical, constructive, energetic, etc. In fact, the energetic connections also determine the rhythms of space. Heat, wind, temperature, and humidity give rise to energetic communicating vessel systems and variable spatial comforts. The flexibility of the system allows its uses and its different forms. Temporality is constructed by the principle or logic of the system, that is, temporary spatial changes are systematically absorbed.

Another focal point of this webinar is wooden constructions for challenging places. Industrialized wooden structures have been strategic to carry out works in especially challenging places. Places with difficult topography, abyssal, or with large native vegetation, or even fragile lands, subject to landslides. Wooden structures are also strategic, due to their light weight, in places of difficult access for materials, or of difficult installation of the construction site.

They are also excellent for places with extreme climate conditions, very low temperatures, and winds of more than 200 km/h, as in Antarctica. In these cases, wood is excellent for thermal insulation, light for transport and quick assembly, and malleable for aerodynamic surfaces.

Wooden structures allowed me, in Atlantic Forest terrain, to build while preserving the native trees and vegetation cover. In some cases I adopted the triangular geometry, which with three directions, offers many more combinations than the two directions of the orthogonal, and therefore more organic perimeters, adapted to the nature of the place, the topography and the trees.

To explore these topics, Insight Architecture and Swissnex in Brazil invites Josep Ferrando (Spain), dean of the School of Architecture La Salle in Barcelona ETSALS and Marcos Acayaba (Brazil), professor at the FAU USP to this webinar. They will present their work and discuss the challenges and opportunities they see in digital fabrication between research and practice. John Hill, chief editor of World Architects will moderate the conversation. The event will be held in English and Portuguese, with simultaneous translation to both languages. The webinar is part of the Insight Architecture’s Future Now event, which investigates the use of sustainable materials and new construction techniques such as digital fabrication in architecture as part of the 27th World Congress of Architects UIA 2021 Rio calendar.

Participants

Partner

This webinar is organized in collaboration with Insight Architecture.

  • Insight Architecture