Research's IaaC - Students Research -

Introductory Design Studio I - ArboReal Home (Treehouse)

Faculty: Areti Markopoulou, Luis Fraguada
Advisor: Gerard Passola
Guest Tutor: Michel Rojkind
Students: Lourdes Marcano, Kathleen Anderson, Ekateria Ageeva

Introductory Design Studio I - ArboReal Home (Treehouse)

Faculty: Areti Markopoulou, Luis Fraguada
Advisor: Gerard Passola
Guest Tutor: Michel Rojkind
Students: Hristo Topchiev

Introductory Design Studio I - ArboReal Home (Treehouse)

Faculty: Areti Markopoulou, Luis Fraguada
Advisor: Gerard Passola
Guest Tutor: Michel Rojkind
Students: Viraj Kataria,Asim Hameed

Introductory Design Studio I - ArboReal Home (Treehouse)

Faculty: Areti Markopoulou, Luis Fraguada
Advisor: Gerard Passola
Guest Tutor: Michel Rojkind
Students: Emil Burulyanov, Fabio Andres Lopez

Ginkgo Biloba Siesta Place Treehouse

The concept of the tree house began from the idea of climbing up the tree. In the beginning the structure literally representaed a central voilume and hands and feet grabbing the branches. The concept evolved fast beacause of structurural and aesthetic considerations. It passed through climbing to hanging, from 4 strucutral strong points to 2 and then to 3 one of which a cable connection. Organic shapes were represented by rib outlines connected with carbon steel pipes. Structure affected the trunk only and tried to go around the branches as opposed to the beginning of the projecct when it was hanging on them. The volume itself consisted of a large space thought in a way to offer a relaxed hideaway. A siesta place in which one can take a nap and release the streess. In the process 2 different methods of constucting the actual structure were considered. Joining many different sections of pipes and ribs with siple bolted connections at an angle or CNC bending the whole lenght of the pipes, which is thought beyond the 15 meter mark, so it may be more continous and homogenious when seen from a close range but much more expensive and having the same effects as different sections when looked from a distance. Lower part of the horizontal ribs, which also were radiating from a central point to express the shape better, were used as stairs for climbing up, while simultaneously pointing pipe ends through smaller and smaller diameters to a concrete block anchored to the ground and covered with soil to be invinsible. In this block the pipes come together and complete the structural cycle. Outer skin of the house can be changed with cloth-like material to suit better the inhabitant and cater for different seasons, temperatures, moods and shading patterns.

Introductory Design Studio I - ArboReal Home (Treehouse)

Faculty: Areti Markopoulou, Luis Fraguada
Advisor: Gerard Passola
Guest Tutor: Michel Rojkind
Students: Margherita Filpi, Marianne Villalobos Emonet

BRANCHY HOUSE

 Cocculus main characteristics underlined by the previous tree analysis:

-Multitrunked  tree

-Twsting and torsioning as a structural strategy

-Umbrella shape canopy

-Joints: strongest structural points

-Branch located in the best position to get the sun is the oldest and the dominant.

 Keypoints  focused on for the project:

1.Fisiology of the tree ,to keep on mind in order not to damage the tree (preserve roots, light need of the leaves).

2. The macrostructure of the tree creates an interesting void space .

3. Jointsas possible points to anchor the structure

4. Characteristical way of colonization of the tree.

Design process_The branchy house is a big object torsioning and twisting that is working as another branch following the genetic, the geometry, the way of bending,  torsioning and twisting of the cocculus tree and maintaining its logical structure. Starts growing from an existing branch,then it splits growing toward the top looking for the sun, and in direction of the ground in order to colonize, as the natural genetic of the tree tends to do when it is left free in the forest.

It has been influenced  by the environment  in the way it tooks advantage of the ‘’available space’’ in order to grow.

The permeable skin of the house is an abstraction of the pattern of the Cocculus leaves, which reproduce at a microscale the same broken lines and movements of the branches. As going toward the top it enlarges and grows in its internal dimension opening more itself and changing its resolution depending on the sun, the environment  and on the ‘’spaces’’ that the tree provides to the house to get pleasure from.

 Program & function _A new branch as a playful object.The branchy house is an object to be  discovered. The program proposed is the result of the study of the scale and the qualities of the tree.  A camping house for kids is growing at the top of this zig - zagging structure, where the idea is to experience the tectonics of this tree by this new branch.

Playing-jumping-climbing up-exploring-hiding-sliding-springboard-permeable are some of the key words that better describes the activities that the house can generate  in its young users, the only ones allowed to enter  and enjoy its secrets.

Introductory Design Studio I - ArboReal Home (Treehouse)

Faculty: Areti Markopoulou, Luis Fraguada
Advisor: Gerard Passola
Guest Tutor: Michel Rojkind
Students: Maria Lucia Mogollon,Carlos Guillermo Naranjo

Introductory Design Studio I - ArboReal Home (Treehouse)

Faculty: Areti Markopoulou, Luis Fraguada
Advisor: Gerard Passola
Guest Tutor: Michel Rojkind
Students: Diana Cristina Bauder Herrera, Leonidas Paterakis, Paula Lucía López González

Introductory Design Studio I - ArboReal Home (Treehouse)

Faculty: Areti Markopoulou, Luis Fraguada
Advisor: Gerard Passola
Guest Tutor: Michel Rojkind
Students: Ander Gortazar, Jacek Markuiewicz

The ginkgo man picks up the gingko fruits and brings them to Collserola, “if everybody did the same, we’d had more trees in Barcelona” he says. In a way, he uses our ginkgo to help Ginkgo, an action that, if it was repeted, would follow the ginkgo’s pattern: one becomes two, two becomes four and so on.

So how can we help him achieving his objective? Could we build him a tribute in the ginkgo so that he can use it as its place? A house, a tribune, a game, a class, a monument?

The house would be a place to be, to read, to rest, to sleep. But also a bench to sit, to speak, to breath, to think. A house for the ginkgo man and for children, a reference that will remind the youngest generations the need of taking care nature.

The bicycle wheel, the most simple tensagrity system, is the image that shows the concept of the structure.

The moebius strip represents the idea of the house: exterior becomes interior and vice versa.

A solid based in the moebius strip enables to have a dynamic structure, a place to sit and to take cover.

This structure can be easily made by a series of sections, that go from vertical to horizontal.

In addition, a perforation in the structure allows us to join the covered space with the exterior one.

Introductory Design Studio I - ArboReal Home (Treehouse)

Faculty: Areti Markopoulou, Luis Fraguada
Advisor: Gerard Passola
Guest Tutor: Michel Rojkind
Students: Ilaria La Manna, Renata Nogueira

Any Case House

Everyone, at least once in their lives have had some kind of contact with a tree, but probably not by laying between two branches held by a tensioned fabric, having the felling of flotation amongst the trees leaves and looking at the sky. An elastic membrane holds the weight of people by being rotated over the branch itself, the rest of the structure is generated from a hexagonal grid shaped elastic latex that can be extruded in many different ways according to you choice or the trees conditions creating the vertical space.  This system works only when you have two horizontal branches in a tree, it is not supposed to work like a tent, it is supposed to be an experience, to have your own space on a tree and enjoy the connection you can establish with the tree, the trust with the tree itself, in its structure and shape. You can have your own refuge, to make your kids dream come through and have a house on a tree. ANYCASE home is a simple backpack you take with you wherever you go, like nature teaches and the turtles follow. It is as simple as opening a bed sheet over two branches, the rest of the structure almost comes by itself, you only help it shape itself into the tree of your choice, you just choose the branches to hang it on. Have fun sleeping on the air!

Introductory Design Studio I - ArboReal Home (Treehouse)

Faculty: Areti Markopoulou, Luis Fraguada
Advisor: Gerard Passola
Guest Tutor: Michel Rojkind
Students: Kfir Gluzberg, Matheus Nava, Brian Peters

This proposal began with a one month intensive study of our specific tree specimen and the species' behaviour in general. Our treehouse focus was drawn from the Casuarina's defensive nature towards foreign species and cultivation and support of its own. As such, we began to research ways of extending one tree in order to meet another such that we could create a 'treehouse' that would enhance or support the trees' mutually supportive reltaionship.

The structure was treated as an extension of the tree's natural growth in tension.

The skin was designed as a growing fabric of Spanish Moss that is known to naturally cohabit with the Casuarina species.

The result of our research was a canopy as extension of any given casuarina specimen. The canopy could be multiplied to create a continuous field from one tree to another. The space below would be part of the continuous matrix that exists between the tree's roots, defensive carpet of needles and fruits, and dense but translucent canopy.