The Radical Wood Pavilion project is part of the Design+Analysis project at the Aalto University School of Arts, Design and Architecture and the Department of Civil and Structural Engineering. The project culminated in the assembly of the pavilion at Radical Design Week Shanghai 2012.
The goal of the project was to study and teach the use of digital design and analysis methods in architecture, design and structural engineering as well as the utilization of novel materials and computer-controlled manufacturing methods.
Plywood was regarded as a suitable material for the pavilion. Finnish birch plywood is known to be a durable building material of consistent quality – not just because of the properties of the Finnish birch but also because of the layered structure of plywood. The Metsä Wood company collaborated in the project in matters to do with plywood while Bergent Oy designed the unique lighting of the pavilion.
The final overall structure and particularly various elements, such as the twisting of the plywood strips, took shape during a multidisciplinary design process: brainstorming on a blackboard, reviews of literature, trying out different shapes on design software, building and testing models, computational analysis of components and their experimental testing in the testing hall – all these things together resulted in the final architecture and structural solutions.
The project was an overseas World Design Capital Helsinki 2012 event.
CREDITS
Coordinators: Jarkko Niiranen, Eero Lunden, Markus Wikar
Project leaders: professor Hannu Hirsi, Department of Architecture, professor Jouko Järvisalo, Department of Design
Students: Ron Aasholm, Jouni Berg, Kristian Karell (architecture), Marko Hämäläinen, Arttu Kaukonen,Matti Pirinen, Päivi Lipponen, Sami Lönnroth, Antti Sironen, Joona Tuikka (construction technology, Matti Kankkunen, Essi Similä (furniture design)