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Entitled “There is a forest in my backyard but my house is built from trees grown far away,” this exhibition is a journey through every stage of the lifecycle of wood, from extraction to potential reuse. A traveling exhibition, it grew out of Wood Works, a competition and cultural exchange organized by the Estonian Association of Architects (EAA) in partnership with the Estonian Centre for Architecture (ECA) and the Irish Architecture Foundation (IAF).
Open until March 25, 2022, at the Solstice Arts Centre in Navan, Ireland, the exhibition is curated by a team of Estonian and Irish architects, namely, b210 and Alder Architects, and architects Aet Ader, Helmi Marie Langsepp, Mari Möldre, and St John Walsh. It sets out to enter the heart and soul of wood, while encouraging the manufacturing and construction industries to learn from, and be shaped by, the inherent qualities of the material.
Wooden furniture for spaces in constant evolution were also the focus of “Miralles. Perpetuum Mobile,” an exhibition inspired by the last home of famous Catalan architect and designer Enric Miralles.
Put together to mark the twentieth anniversary of Miralles’ death, the exhibition was featured in The Plan 132. You can read an extract from the article here.
“As a natural building material, wood contains a unique richness that is impacted by many factors, including climate and topography,” the curators point out. “Whether the building site is next to a forest or not, timber used in construction has been subjected to an industrial decision-making process that dictates its final physical properties. In this act of translation, where wood is often treated similarly to other inanimate materials, a tree’s uniqueness is sacrificed for transportability, structural consistency, and usability.”
To investigate the process – from extraction to transportation, standardization, encapsulation, and eventual disassembly for potential reuse – five Estonian and five Irish architectural firms were invited to work in pairs to create a total of a dozen exhibits, each one the result of a previous exchange, initiated in 2020 during the pandemic, between these very different traditions, experiences, and interests.
During this same period, twenty young designers were tasked by the American Hardwood Export Council (AHEC) with creating objects in wood intended to combat the loneliness of the pandemic.
We looked at the first results of the project, called Discovered, in the article “Resilient Wood Design,” in The Plan 135. An extract is available here.
The works on display, occupying various section of the Solstice Arts Centre, revolve around a central piece created by Peeter Pere in collaboration with composer Sander Molder. Entitled Symphony of the Forest, it’s an acoustic ceiling installation that abstracts the physicality of the forest. The forest itself is represented through recordings of the sounds of nature and specially composed music. This installation is located directly over Studio Kuidas’ work, I Know this Room, an irregularly shaped platform that is “an attempt to ‘listen’ [to wood] through the sole of the foot.” The installation sets out to express the ability of wood to record patterns of daily life, its uses, and its movement through clay molds of floorboards in which various stories take shape.
The same gallery houses Raw Potential, an installation by Wrkshop Architects, which proposes a construction system that uses untreated logs and standard plywood joints.
In a gallery off the central room, we find Conversation Piece by Hannigan Cooke Architects and Ruumiringlus, a circular structure with benches outside and photographic images inside; Mnemonic Wood by Paco Ulman and Kaja Pae, a layer of person-sized wood that aims to give an identity to an environment devoid of uniqueness; and, finally, De Oratorio by Joseph Mackey Architects. The first of these three installations was born out of unexpected interpretations that reflect different cultural and social customs regarding the use of wood, instructions that represent a sort of written protocol for assembly, and the challenge of reusing building materials. The words of an 8th-century poem describing an Irish chapel were the inspiration for De Oratorio, a wooden structure by Joseph Mackey Architects that investigates how a material tradition can be lost, rediscovered, and reinterpreted over time.
By considering key parameters, such as the origin of materials, the lifecycle of buildings, and future reuse, Butterfly Building, by Robert Bourke Architects in the third gallery, raises questions about why, how, and when we build. This gallery also hosts a digital application developed by Creatomus Solutions that aims to both educate and assist visitors by calculating their carbon footprint. The app is called Carbon Configuration. Finally, with The Bricoleurs, OGU Architects set out to create an informal construction, mainly using rescued window frames from around Belfast. The result has an inviting appearance that emphasizes the highly tactile qualities of its materials.
Irish artist Eamon O’Kane’s Wood Block Laboratory is a space where children can experience the texture and touch of wooden shapes and games, reflecting the way these materials have been harnessed by various educationalists over the years. Students from the School of Architecture at the University of Limerick (SAUL), led by senior lecturer Peter Carroll, created Timber Futures, a series of images and posters.
The exhibition, which opened in late January, can be visited 11 a.m. – 4 p.m., Tuesday to Saturday, until March 25, 2022. Entry is free. Dedicated to art and culture, the Solstice Arts Centre in Navan is a place where architecture meets music, theater, visual arts, cinema, and dance.
A closing seminar (free but bookings are essential), chaired by Peter Carroll, senior lecturer at SAUL, will complete the path taken by the exhibition through the experiences of the guests and a discussion of the ongoing research into the use of timber in architecture being conducted by universities.
The seminar will, however, be both an end and a beginning, since the exhibition will then move on to Estonia for the Tallinn Architecture Biennale 2022.
Location: Navan, Irlanda
Organisers: Estonian Association of Architects (EAA), Estonian Centre for Architecture (ECA), Irish Architecture Foundation (IAF)
Main funders: Enterprise Estonia (European Commission - European Regional Development Fund)
Co-funders: Arts Council of Ireland, Cultural Endowment of Estonia, Enterprise Ireland, Meath County Council
Curators: Alder Architects, Dublin (St John Walsh) and b210 Architects, Tallinn (Aet Ader, Helmi Marie Langsepp and Mari Möldre)
Date: 29 gennaio-25 marzo
Photography by Aislin Mc Coy, Aet Ader, Eva Kedelauk, Kadri Laar and Liina Soosaar, Tõnu Tunnel, Henri Papson, courtesy of Wood Works
