OPALIA, PARIS
The ease of concrete has put us to sleep, but when you look at how much energy is required to make it and demolish it, it’s ridiculous not to look at wood
Steven Ware, Director, Art&Build
wanted to create a gentle barrier, protecting the residential buildings north of our site by providing a screen between them and the noise and pollution. We also had to build something fairly high to achieve the gross floor area that the client wanted. “We came up with the idea of a protec- tive hand shape where each floorplan is a little bit different – rather like with a hand when you curl your fingers slightly and each finger curls in a different way. This hand closes the block off, creating a garden on the inside, yet you can still see through between the different levels and the back- drops. We put this forward as an architectural proposal before even talking about the wood.”
Tackling high cost
The different floorplans were one aspect of another major challenge for Art&Build: keeping costs down. Ware explains: “When dealing with wood you’re talking about a lot of prefab elements and the more rectan- gular the better – but our floorplan is unusual. Our aim was to reduce the amount of offcuts so we worked with the timber contractor and moved the supporting beams where possible to address that.” He adds: “One of the main barriers to building in wood is that people generally say it’ll be 30 per cent more expensive and we wanted to prove it wouldn’t be. With a few extra hours working on design and working with the contractor we've suc- ceeded.”
While the load-bearing weight of the building is carried by a timber frame, and the cladding, walls and floors are timber, Steven believes that use of materials other than wood, making the most of their spe- cific advantages, is another way to keep costs down.
“People generally accept that no building needs be 100 per cent wood. Besides the glazing, we have a steel ring beam round the edge of each floorplate to bind every-
17
ADF OCTOBER 2016
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