Unfolding Timber - A future of design

Abstract

Unfolding" is a pavilion comprised of six lightweight structures designed for the London Design Biennale 2021. "UnFolding" examines the potential for using engineered timber with digital tools to produce flexible interiors. The pavilion is folded through kerfing methods into fractal-based structures. Extensive research, testing and sample fabrication to acquire optimal flexibility of different timber members through kerf patterns was accomplished for the project.

Prototyping Architecture: A flat-pack timber plate structure from design to production

“…There are several precedents of folded or segmented timber plate structures (Stitic and Weinand, 2015;Robeller et al, 2016;Tagliaboschi, 2020;Shah et al, 2022). Most structures either consist of interlocking plates (Henriques, 2012;Foged, Pasold and Jensen, 2014;Gatóo et al, 2022;Robeller et al, 2015;Bechert et al, 2018), and tenon joints (Robeller and Weinand, 2016;Rezaei Rad, Burton and Weinand, 2020) or comprise of individual panels that are connected with cleats (Schimek, Meisel and Bogenperger, 2010;Ruffo, Schimek and Wiltsche, 2011;Manahl, Stavric and Wiltsche, 2012). An interesting method and tool is Wood Frame grammar that connects plywood panels either with studs or with the help of structural connections, such as dog bones connectors (Sass, 2005).…”

“…A remarkable example of flat-pack construction is the "UnFolding" pavilion (Figure 1.a), which studies the potential of engineered timber with the use of digital tools, aiming at flexible spaces. The pavilion prototypes employ different thicknesses of timber, investigating folding and kerf patterns to create flexible structures that can be easily adapted and reused (Gatóo et al, 2022).…”

“…A large-scale pavilion, built in 2012 at the University of Technology of Graz, is another example of a flat-Figure 1 Flat-pack design pavilions: a. "UnFolding" pavilion (Gatóo et al, 2022) 2008). pack construction.…”