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Lunar Wood

Lunar Wood

Overview

Lunar Wood is a research-based architectural installation that examines the dynamic and environmental relationship generated between timber growth and lunar cycles. It considers how lunar-felled timber, and crafts-based knowledge of this material from cabinet and instrument makers, might improve sustainable building construction. The project emphasises innovative environmental solutions through using wood, in a world of diminishing resources, informed by traditional methods of forestry, wood design and manufacturing.

The interactive model is composed of a series of horizontal timber planks and populated by devices on its top and bottom surfaces that interact to represent the traditions of empirical versus scientific practice in the timber industry. It reacts to shifting balances and currents of airflow across its surface. Through these minute forces the installation demonstrates and responds to the fluctuating and reciprocal push and pull of natural cycles.

Lunar Wood was commissioned for the exhibition Japanese Style: Sustaining Design at the Ruthin Craft Centre, Wales, and was completed during a one-week residency, titled Nurturing the Spirit, in collaboration with the Osamu Ishiyama Laboratory at Waseda University, Tokyo, and the Design Research Unit at the Welsh School of Architecture, Cardiff.

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Laura Allen
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Mark Smout
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manufacturing performance research