Jun 15, 2006
Grow your own house
Those famaliar with Paul Laffoley will be excited to see this project:
The Fab Tree Hab — a home literally made from trees, using an ancient technique called pleaching (the art of weaving (and sometimes grafting) trees together to form structures) — was one of the design entries for the Index: awards, emerging from the genius of a crew including MIT architect Mitchell Joachim and our friend, Javier Arbona of Archinect. The project description emphasized consideration of whole systems (and ecosystems) in creating a truly sustainable built environment, rather than a piecemeal approach that could yield uncertain longterm outcomes.
Related posts (autogenerated):
When the Boston Globe posted the article about Mitchell Joachim’s designs for living architecture, there was not even a slight mention of Paul Laffoley’s development of the idea some 30 years prior. Though Joachim’s work can be appreciated for its technical execution, it must be examined with previous acknowledgment of its source of inspiration.
Many people and ideas influenced the Fab Tree Hab that date back long before the eccentric Laffoley;
Marc-Antoine Laugier. Primitive Hut, and
An Essay on Architecture, 1753.
Arthur Wiechula. Wachsende häuser aus lebenden bäumen entstehend (Living trees grow into homes). Paul Zimmermann, Berlin, 1923.
Thanks Archinode. Those are some interesting early examples – I’ve done a fresh blog post to highlight them.
There’s also a complete reference list here:
http://www.archinode.com/Arch9fab.html
And it does include Paul’s work.