Explorations in Wood: Material, Form and Construction

Wood being a renewable material has been used in construction for a long time. Over time various construction processes and techniques have been developed to test the material for its strength, versatility, load-bearing, and structural capacity. The studio intends to integrate computational tools, physical, digital methods of design and testing to explore the anisotropic properties of wood and kerfing as a method of construction to develop complex structures. The studio will be divided into 3 modules. The first module intends to understand the mechanical properties of the material by employing various theoretical, physical, and digital methods of testing. The second module intends to understand the correlation between the material properties and kerfing patterns to test wood for its flexibility and develop various models. The third module intends to explore computational tools to design complex forms, construct, test prototypes and construct the selected form at 1:1 scale.