The Sabia Madera exhibition presents a selection of works carried out by the Wood Program of the Department of Architecture of the Aalto University of Finland.
Throughout his 30 years of experiencethe program has pioneered research, innovation and academic teaching, proposing creative architectural solutions that encourage new approaches in sustainable industrialized construction.
The exhibition, which is part of the activities of the Buenos Aires Biennial and has the support of the Embassy of Finland, is passing through its last days in Argentina. It can be toured until Sunday, December 15, from 2 to 8 p.m.freely and free of charge at the Borges Cultural Center (Viamonte 525).
Since 1994, the Wood Program has explored the technical, architectural and sustainable properties of woodadopting a comprehensive vision of the entire construction chain with this material.
Students begin their training with an immersion in the forest environment and culminate by building an experimental wooden building.
“The Wood Program explores the ecological, technical and architectural properties of wood, providing a complete and exhaustive view of the entire construction chainstarting with the tree in the forest and ending with an experimental wooden building,” the portal summarizes.
Laura Zubillaga, curator of the exhibition and professor of the Wood Program, highlights one of the pieces on display: “Kide is the project we carried out for the 30th anniversary of the program, it is an outdoor event space in the city of Kuhmo, in northern Finland. There we seek to reflect the fractal geometry of snowflakes, since ‘Kide’ in Finnish refers to ‘ice crystal’.”
The retrospective of academic projects contains 40 wooden cubesall pieces measuring 20 cm on each side with individual designs that represent experimentations on the materiality of wood, combining technical aspects with aesthetic and artistic exploration.
They are also presented photographs printed on multilaminate of the 40 academic projects built. These are images of projects carried out by students with a focus on exploring the structural and aesthetic possibilities of wood.
The projects vary in scale and programs, from homes and saunas, to open-air theaters, pavilions, train stops, etc.
Photographs are added, also on multilaminate, that document the design, construction and assembly process of the wooden works.
Los 16 models (1:10 and 1:20 scale) They detail selected projects, which present designs and solutions applied to the use of wood as a construction material. Another 32 larger panels, with high-quality photographs, document the projects that are presented in scale model format.
In addition, the exhibition offers detailed information about each project, including descriptions, technical data and plans that allow us to understand the context and challenges of each work.
Finally, the exhibition presents seven models of wooden residential buildings on a 1:200 scale and three homes (1:20), which show the potential of the material in high-rise structures.