Research's IaaC - Ginkgo Biloba Treehouse

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.