Wakeford Skeleton
The Library Skeleton is a part of Wakeford Hall, a multi-layered academic building being developed by our Design + Make students at the centre of the AA’s Hooke Park campus. Through 2017, we put our focus to the design and production of its first component - the Library - whose assembled timber skeleton forms the tangible inheritance to be taken forward by a subsequent generation of students (current phase).
The library’s skeletal structure was developed through iterations of drawing, physical model making and prototyping. Investigating how industrial timber lamination processes might be applied within both Design + Make and Hooke Park’s ongoing built research, through the Library project, innovative methodologies for the production of bespoke laminated frames were developed. Each of its 14 laminated timber frames was shaped using a robot mounted bandsaw developed in-house. Marks of both the processes and tools that produced it remain present in the finished object – from tree growth to digital fabrication.
A thorough Lidar 3D survey of the assembled structure has enabled analysis of assembly tolerances to directly inform how we approach further design and fabrication strategies.