“The main ambition of this project is to publicly debate how environmental challenges can be addressed through innovative, affordable construction. We are at a crisis point in terms of both housing and CO2 emissions and we believe that building in a versatile, sustainable material such as tulipwood is an important way of addressing these issues.”
Andrew Waugh, co-founder of Waugh Thistleton.
The London architecture studio Waugh Thistleton Architects is behind the design of MultiPly, one of the most striking proposals of the London Design Festival, formed by a series of interconnected spaces that overlap and interlace, encouraging visitors to rethink the way which are designed and built our houses and cities.
The 9-meter-high installation with labyrinthine spaces guides visitors through a series of staircases, corridors and open spaces, inviting them to explore the potential of wood in architecture. "The structure will lead people in a joyful dance up and down stairs and across bridges so they can explore space and light," adds Waugh.
The three-dimensional structure has been built from a flexible system of pieces composed of 17 modules of cross-laminated wood (CLT - Cross Laminated Timber) of American tulipwood with joints made digitally. Like a piece of furniture ready to assemble, it will be supplied in a flat package as a set of pieces of wood that are assembled in a simple way in less than a week. As it consists of modules, the pavilion can easily be dismantled and reused in another place once the London Design Festival is over.
MultiPly has been designed with a high level of permeability to offer views through the façade and the patio, but also to attract viewers into the structure, so that they can experience new views, carefully thought out, to the heritage facades of the Victoria & Albert Museum.
The 9-meter-high installation with labyrinthine spaces guides visitors through a series of staircases, corridors and open spaces, inviting them to explore the potential of wood in architecture. "The structure will lead people in a joyful dance up and down stairs and across bridges so they can explore space and light," adds Waugh.
The three-dimensional structure has been built from a flexible system of pieces composed of 17 modules of cross-laminated wood (CLT - Cross Laminated Timber) of American tulipwood with joints made digitally. Like a piece of furniture ready to assemble, it will be supplied in a flat package as a set of pieces of wood that are assembled in a simple way in less than a week. As it consists of modules, the pavilion can easily be dismantled and reused in another place once the London Design Festival is over.
MultiPly has been designed with a high level of permeability to offer views through the façade and the patio, but also to attract viewers into the structure, so that they can experience new views, carefully thought out, to the heritage facades of the Victoria & Albert Museum.
"The Waugh Thistleton Architects studio has been a pioneer for decades in innovative uses of wood in construction. MultiPly explores a new and more sustainable way of building, by combining a negative carbon material that abounds in forests - the American tulipwood - with a modular design," explains David Venables, European director of AHEC.
Carolina Bartram, project director of Arup, comments: "The MultiPly installation, with which we intend to continue the exploration of the hardwood contralaminated wood that we started in facilities like The Timberwave, The Smile and Endless Stair, gives us a playful opportunity to continue experimenting and innovating with this tactile and adaptable material. The seemingly simple series of stacked boxes is a complex engineering challenge, which is made even more interesting by the fact that this sculpture is in the recently completed and elegant Sackler courtyard of the Victoria & Albert Museum. We consider it a privilege, as engineers for the Sackler yard, to be able to contribute to creating the engineering designs for MultiPly."
"AHEC has worked with a large number of great architects - David Adjaye, Amanda Levete, Alex de Rijke, Alison Brooks and now Waugh Thistleton - to demonstrate the structural, aesthetic and environmental properties of tulipwood cross-laminated wood."
MultiPly is open at the V&A Sackler Courtyard from 15 September to 1 October 2018.
MultiPly is open at the V&A Sackler Courtyard from 15 September to 1 October 2018.
