... England ... Piers Taylor
Piers Taylor, Invisible Studio, Bath, England : Glenn Murcutt Master Class 2001
[ design and build : student project : architectural association : local timber structure : big span ]
Big Shed, Architectural Association Hooke Park, Dorset, England
Hooke Park is the Architectural Association’s woodland site in Dorset, south west England. The 150 hectare working forest is owned and operated by the AA and contains a growing educational facility for design, workshop, construction and landscape-focussed activities. It is used by visiting groups of London-based students, the Hooke Park-based MArch Design & Make programme, and for short courses during the academic breaks.
Hooke Park Big Shed is one of the most innovative and talked about project of recent years. Piers Taylor was commissioned by the Architectural Association to design the building alongside postgraduate masters students.
Taylor’s Masters students prepared the concept design and Taylor then developed the scheme for construction and documentation.
The building uses green timber from the Hooke forest in its construction – for which a new way of jointing timber was prototyped in order to minimize the use of steel in the construction. Bath University’s material science laboratory was used to test timber deflection and also test the innovative jointing system.
The building continues in the tradition of the other big span buildings on site by using small section low grade timber (thinnings) in its construction – which are a series of long trusses, entirely constructed on site by a team led by Charley Brentnall using unskilled students in the construction.