Trähus
Commercial
2022
Typology: Commercial office Floor area: 32,000m² Height: 9 levels, 35m Status: Design studies
As we all continue to respond to the global impact of climate change and attempt to restore equilibrium to the natural environment, our cities, and our communities, it’s crucial we engage our obligation as designers to place sustainability at the forefront of all that we do. No longer an ‘add-on’ design option or a secondary overlay to more traditional approaches to design, sustainability must be deeply embedded in our thinking, prior to project inception.
We are interested in the use of renewable timber in our projects wherever possible. In our first project – the competition submission Garovin, we took a ‘timber first’ approach to the design process where structure and interior design combined to generate a unique identity for project. We are also interested in ideas of translation and discovery – stepping outside our geographic location here in New Zealand to learn from other cultures, traditions and more importantly the use of new technology and construction techniques.
Scandinavian countries have used timber as a main structural element for decades and more recently the advance of mass timber construction has to a degree produced a ‘Scandinavian Effect.’ We love Sweden and the fabulous combination of simplicity and sophistication that permeates all things Swedish. We also like to keep it simple here at Sloan and again drawing on a translation, this time from English to Swedish, we have started work on Trähus (treehouse), to explore new ideas in timber design and construction.
The project is a large floor plate commercial office building where renewable source timber is proposed as a main structural element and the predominant interior finishing material. It also pursues another layer of translation where design simplicity results in a visual complexity. The simplicity commences with an orthogonal structural grid established to optimize glue laminated timber beam spans, cross laminated timber floor units, and internal space planning conventions.
Inside the building the floor plate opens to full-height atriums with extensive planting and mixed mode ventilation systems providing two ‘lungs’ for the building. The perimeter of the floor plate is contained by glue laminated timber diagonal grids that provide lateral bracing and a sub-frame for a high-performance external envelope and thermal shading system.
While we are interested in the potential of timber to significantly reduce carbon footprints and embodied energy, we are also interested in the sculptural and spatial potential timber provides. Advances in digital technology and fabrication techniques have removed previous obstacles to innovative timber design solutions and reconnects us to perhaps the most natural material of all. We are excited by this, and we look forward to these ongoing design studies.
