Working in collaboration with leading practitioners in the field, a central ambition of the Lab’s research is to explore long-term forestry strategies for Hooke Park – reflecting the fact that the impacts of decision-making in forestry can be measured in decades, if not centuries.
The Wood Lab seeks to align the evolution of the forest with the evolution of the campus at Hooke Park. In doing so, it contributes to an urgent and broader conversation within architecture around the use of timber, its possibilities, its challenges and its sustainability. A conversation about timber in architecture is fundamentally a conversation about forestry, ecology and climate.
With its own working woodland, Hooke Park is the ideal location for large-scale experiments in timber architecture and for research that places the forest supplying this timber at the centre of the work. Forestry thinking is, necessarily, long-term thinking and the Wood Lab is uniquely positioned to interrogate and innovate across the timber supply chain, from saplings to building.
The AA Wood Lab has been made possible thanks to the generous support of John Makepeace, who founded the Hooke Park campus as Director of the Parnham Trust (1982–2001).
The very first Wood Lab Symposium “A FOREST LABORATORY” featured speakers from across the discipline. A day of talks and discussion led us into the woods, with conversations connecting forestry, ecology, material, craft, engineering and architecture. The symposium framed the ambitions and agendas of the AA Wood Lab: a forestry and architecture research initiative based at Hooke Park, the AA’s woodland campus in Dorset.
A day of talks and discussion led us into the woods, with conversations connecting forestry, ecology, material, craft, engineering and architecture. The symposium framed the ambitions and agendas of the AA Wood Lab: a forestry and architecture research initiative based at Hooke Park, the AA’s woodland campus in Dorset.
Please watch the recording here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mW65Ju8qstk
CURATED BY
Kate Davies, Emmanuel Vercruysse and John Makepeace
FOREST/ LANDSCAPE
Chris Sadd – Hooke Park Forester
Jeremy Ralph – Evolving Forests
Catherine Byrne – Hooke Park Forest Research Fellow
Gabriel Hemery – Sylva Foundation
TIMBER / MATERIAL
Alison Crowther – sculptor and furniture maker
Sean Sutcliffe – Benchmark Furniture
Andrew Lawrence & Francis Archer – Arup
ARCHITECTURE / SPACE
Guilherme Ressel – Marks Barfield Architects
Martin Self – Xylotek
Kai Strehlke – Blumer-Lehmann
Image: Harvesting in Hooke Park, the Architectural Association’s working woodland. Credit: Frederik Petersen