crown shyness

Columbia GSAPP Adv IV | Spring 2020
Studio Critic: Lindsey Wikstrom

Project in collaboration with Tung Nguyen

Crown shyness is a naturally adaptive phenomenon where crowns of trees do not touch each other, forming an optimized canopy with little gaps. The Living Lab is a proposal of that exact livelihood, where the boundary between forest and building co-exist through a resiliency of sharing knowledge in three dimensions: between forest and non-forest, humans and machines, and home and work. Rather than separate sites for timber processing and LVL production, the project relies on a mobile, bot-driven, automated process, for easier access to trees and replication of panels. The Lab is an open source branching system that grows on the forest floor under the deciduous canopy, intersecting with the bot grid where it forms a continuous space of Living and Laboratory spaces.

This project reflects a system of thinking about how we work, how we live, and how we use materials sustainably to build the environment in which we inhabit. In 50 years when the cycle of replanting trees begins anew, the Living Lab will have grown to be self-sustaining and self-educating. The people and bots who live and work here will have a wealth of collected knowledge on sustainable forestry, timber engineering, and automation.