1. Wood waste remained
Surrounding by mountains, Luotuowan is a Village with poor transportation and dilapidated houses. In recent years, local government has allocated plenty of resources to renovate and construct the houses. Large number of wooden beams and rafters were left over during this process. Previously, the woods had been used to make a fire .But then, due to the call for ecological environment protection and forest fire prevention as well as the fact that air source heat pumps and gas equipment for cooking were introduced, they were left unused.
2. Shade pergola over the scarp
Villagers intended to have a shade pergola over a long scarp with cement column piers along both sides. According to the original plan, heavy square steel bars and large timbers needed to be purchased and transported from faraway and required professional construction team and utilization of crane.
3. Dymaxion & best use of materials
Richard Buckminster Fuller summed up his concept on technology and human development: “dymaxion”- maximum gain of advantage from minimal energy input. As for construction activities, it can be interpreted as “building the largest space and the most solid structure with minimal material use”. Thus in our design, materials for construction units were designed as small as possible, so more wood waste could be reused and the construction work could be carried out by villagers. Wooden rod units constitute the structural system, which enhances stability and obtains a larger space.
4. Conforming to wood materials is following nature
Wooden rods of different lengths were reclaimed from demolished houses. We didn’t cut or lengthen any wooden rod. Instead, we took into account the tolerance of length variation and ingeniously arranged the position of each wooden unit. Thus a flexible pergola structure which conforms to materials and the mountainous surroundings was created.
Credits: Yujie Luo LUO studio, Mingchu Li LUO studio, Zhenqi Wang LUO studio, Zhuojian Lu LUO studio, Wenjing Wei LUO studio
Credits:
- LUO studio - Wenjing Wei
- LUO studio - Zhenqi Wang
- LUO studio - Zhuojian Lu
- LUO studio - Yujie Luo
- LUO studio - Mingchu Li