FIELDSTATION
Hooke Park & Bedford Square London
2021 - 2022
AA Design + Make
Field // to spread, Station // to position
Field stations provide protected environments in which researchers conduct long-term situational studies required for making fundamental discoveries. At Hooke, discoveries occur at the convergence of making and engaging, observing and recording, workshop and forest. This diversity of “positions” is neither static nor permanent. It is respondent and contingent.
FIELDSTATION is an extension of this convergence. It aims to address the desire to conduct contextual research within the forest condition and extend making beyond the confines of the studio. FIELDSTATION is the point of connection between the forest and workshop, acting as a laboratory, toolbox, and stage.
The FIELDSTATION is comprised of three parts; a roundwood space truss, tree fork primary structure, and fluid-frame studio pod. Each component investigates a unique application of timber construction.
ROUNDWOOD SPACE FRAME
The structure is a hybrid of branch timber and dimensional lumber joined as a space frame / space truss engineered system. The roundwood braces are harvested from 5-7cm diameter pieces of crown timber that are discarded during the Hooke Park annual thinning exercise. This “waste” has little to no economic value in contemporary forestry practice, and as such is left on the forest floor. The spaceframe typology offers a unique opportunity to take advantage of the intrinsic rigidity and material eccentricity as structural diagonal bracing. With the assistance of ARUP engineering, the studio has designed a system that places all roundwood members in compression through pretension steel rods. Robotic milling processes make it possible to scale up this operation while maintaining precise cut joints. The studio will continue to explore the potentials of this structural logic by introducing greater formal complexity and fine-tuning the digital fabrication workflow.
