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Thinking Through Making: Yakisugi 焼杉

Yakisugi, also known as shou sugi ban (焼杉板), is a Japanese cladding system which involves charring wood to preserve it. This charring makes the wood water, insect, and fire resistant. With these properties and taking into consideration my prospective building programme and the site I felt it would be worthwhile to investigate this material for future usage in my project. I also chose to investigate this cladding system because of how it uses fire to preserve wood, caring as a result of the conflict between the flames and the wood.

Figure 3: HAPA Architects House in the South Downs

Figure 4: Gresford Architects London Extension

For this process I upcylced a palate which had been left outside of the workshop, as well as sourcing some wood from the workshop’s recycled wood store. I also paid a visit to the Newcastle Wood Recycling Yard in Walker to pick up two very large pieces of pine for use in this project.

I charred the surfaces of 5 different types of wood in order to investigate a wide range of possibilities and how each wood would react to this treatment. I chose to char: Redwood Pine, Pitch Pine, Pine, Ash, Oak, and Iroko.

After charring the wood I brushed the surface with a wire brush to remove the bulk of the surface dust from the wood.

After brushing I then applied several coats of olive oil to the wood, to protect the surface and really bring out the dark colours of the charred wood.

Columns L-R:

1: Breaking apart the pallet, progress at lunch on day 1, end of day 1,

2: Wood Sourced from Wood Yard, final line-up of wood, wood being charred

3: Yakisugi after brushing, yakisugi after oiling

4: Thinking Through making exhibition

Overall I was very pleased with the Yakisugi which I had produced. I felt as if I collated a diverse range of woods which created may differing effects once they were charred. The main difference that I would make would be to char the wood more, as to give it a more crocodile skin looking appearance, and as well I wouldn’t have used iroko as its fumes can be an irritant and also because it is an African hardwood, as opposed to the other woods which I used which are all native to the UK.

Woods used (L-R): Ash, Reclaimed pine, Iroko, Oak, Redwood Palette Pine, Pitch Pine

Creating a concept

self Care

I took what I learnt from the earlier phases of work and created my concept. I reinterpreted our group’s theme of conflict and care and reinterpreted it to become Self Care and Internal Conflict.

internal Conflict

After refining my concept I began to do some research. I found numerous studies which discuss the link between the creative arts and improving mental health. I decided that a mental health rehabilitation centre will fit within my newly defined sub-brief.

This is especially important as over the main period of the COVID pandemic the prevalence of depression rose from 10% to 21% (Baker, KirkWade, 2023)

A study from the University of Washington says that art can:

Relieve Stress

Boost Self Esteem

Heal Trauma

Help people to express their issues

(Louey, 2022)

The same study says that some of the ways which art can improve mental health include: Art Sculpture Fashion

Needlework crafts

Jewellery crafts Writing

A study by Drexel university showed that levels of cortisol ( a stress hormone) were reduced amongst 75% of participants, after just 45 minutes of arts based activities (Otto, 2016).

I think it would be best to design a space where arts can mental health can work in tandem, the Firth of Forth an apt site, where the water is met by tremendous feats of human engineering.

There will be studios, classrooms, and a workshop for people who are struggling with their mental health, so they can create and express their issues. The centre will also provide spaces for conventional talking therapies like general counselling and Cognitive Behavioural Theory

But I also have a more personal reason

The creative process is something that has helped me hugely, potentially saving my life

In October 2022 I finally admitted to myself that I wanted to end my life, something I’d mulled over for months. And I began seeking treatment

I began taking antidepressants in December, beginning with Setraline, then Mirtazapine and now Venlafaxine.

In March, the full stop was put on the sentence. My therapist telling me I have depression, and I’d been experiencing a major depressive episode.

My life for this entire academic year has been marred with questions like: Do I or do I not take my life? Why do I feel like all I can do is hurt everyone around me? How to I free myself from this pain?

Suicide had gone from being this amorphous concept, to being a part of my daily life, sometimes not knowing if the next week will begin.

I want to mend myself

Initial precedent research

Once I ascertained my rough concept I began to look into precedents which had aspects that I would be open to integrating into my project. I drew on a wide range of precedents from architecture, Sci-Fi, and Opera among others.

Meditation Pavillion, Giovanni Wegher Water Temple, Tadao Ando Buddhist Shrine, Arch Studio Al-Faya Lodge, ANARCHITECT

Geonosian Droid Foundries, Star Wars II Prague Waterfront Vaults, Petr Janda

Under, Snøhetta Joshua Tree Folly, Cohesion Studio

Infinity Rooms, Yayoi Kusama

Atelier des Lumières Pons Ora, Star Wars the Clone Wars 62 West Wallaby Street, Wallace and Gromit

Brooklyn Vertical Farms, Farmlab Mima, Aniara Hänsel und Gretel, Glyndebourne Opera Eurovision stage 2014, DR

CAHMS, Projects Office

Freetown Christiania, Copenhagen

The Artist is Present, Marina Abramović Urban Hospice, NORD

Figure 5-24: Titled in Drawing Figure 25-44: Titled in Drawing

Stylistic precedent

I chose that I would base my projects in a stylistic manner from the Moon Knight Comics by Jeff lemire. I was inspired by the feelings of transition that the story of the comic portrayed, the feeling of transition between feelings and styles by merely crossing the threshold of a door is something that I wanted to convey in the grander feeling of my project.

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Reinforcing Atmosphere

To reinforce the feelings of transition between spaces conveyed in Moon Knight, I will research the works of Peter Zumthor and Juhani Pallasmaa should be considered to help reinforce how the spaces will ensure this feeling of transition between one another.

Juhani Pallasmaa

Juhani Pallasmaa also theorised much about atmosphere was. He said that architecture “strengthens the existential experience, one’s sense of being in the world” (Pallasmaa, 2005).

He reinforces this idea by saying “Architecture initiates, directs, and organises behaviour and movement. A building is not an end in itself; it frames, articulates, structures, gives significance, relates, separates and unites, facilitates and prohibits” (Pallasmaa, 2005).

Pallasmaa concludes this by saying that “Architecture reflects, materialises and eternalises ideas and images of ideal life” (Pallasmaa, 2005).

Gernot Böhme summarises Pallasmaa’ s “embodied image” as where an element like a door “cannot simply continuing being a formal element but must be considered a passage, an element in the course of life”(Böhme, 2014).

When we apply these definitions to architectural works like Pallasmaa’s Module-255 which he co-designed with Kristian Gullichsen. We see the interface between the building and surrounding nature is completely permeable. This style of interface could be seen as the “embodied image” that Böhme was describing, this permeability of the structure can make Moduli-225 appear as it is a way point upon one’s journey through the woods.

Figure 48

During the ARC 3015 Theory into practice module I undertook an analysis of the writings and thinkings of Pallasmaa, to analyse how I would begin to integrate his principles into my design.

I made this investigation which tries to understand and integrate Pallasmaa’s thought processes. This is a sectional drawing on wood with pen to denote the workshop, and watercolour on paper to represent the outside.

Peter Zumthor

Zumthor believes that we experience atmosphere “through our emotional sensibility”. He goes onto break down his approach into 9 chapters:

1: “The Body of Architecture”. The material presence of things in a piece of architecture

2: “Material Compatibility”

3: “Sound of a Space”

4: “The Temperature of a Space”

5: “Surrounding Objects”

6: “Between Composure and Seduction. It has to do with the way architecture involves movement”

7: “Tension between Interior and Exterior”

8: “Levels of Intimacy. It all has to do with proximity and distance”

9: “The Light on Things” (Zumthor, 2006)

When looking at his work on the therme vals there is a clear adherence to these principles, when we look at an image of the pools in the spa there has been particular adherence to chapters 1, 6, and 9, intimate detail has been paid to how the building is put together, detail has been paid to how the swimmer will enter the pool, and attention has been paid to how the light interacts with the interfaces within the room

Figure 49

I analysed how I would begin to integrate each of Zumthor’s chapters into my own work by making some very quick and simple investigations. These then began to inform how I made choices in my building surrounding materials, technical strategies, and orientation

Mending Spaces where the inhabitants can attend therapy, as well as sleeping spaces

Precedent Studies

To understand how it has been done before I began by understanding how self care through internal conflict programmes how their spaces work, before looking into precedents that I like which work in gap sites, or which utilise a system which could work in my project

I decided that for my zonal investigations I will use translucent shapes, to understand how certain spaces overlap, and interact with each other.

Community

Spaces for users to socially interact with one another

Connecting

Where the Scheme joins the differing spaces

Making Spaces for creation and creativity

New Life Portugal Wellbeing Centre, PLATFORMArq

What I liked about this precedent was that it is a larger scale intervention that consists of a number of individual buildings as opposed to one structure, this means that there is a very interesting usage of the connecting space as it is present however it doesn’t directly, architecturally link it.

Maggie’s Cancer Centre Leeds, Heatherwick

Heatherwick utilised a very open plan scheme where the spaces of mending and community were ostensibly kept within the same footprint and were all bridged together because of its open scheme.

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LIANG XIN Oriental Therapy Centre, Magén Arquitectos

This precedent keeps the spaces of mending and connection away from one another so that the therapies can be undertaken away from the main spaces of circulation and connection, allowing a peaceful environment.

Infinity Wellbeing Spa Bangkok, Space Popular

In this precedent the spaces of connecting making and mending are all located across different floors of the building, and they are all linked together by the spaces of connection found in the stairs.

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I experimented with my coloured shapes until I began to integrate how these spaces onto my site, which gave me the basis for the very early programming of my building.

Having looked at programmatic precedents I then took a look at design based precedents, particularly looking at how differing designs have integrated new and old fabrics together

CLS Architects Office, CLS Architects

The facet that I liked about this project was it’s approach to preserving the original structure. The impact that the intervention has on the original building is minimal as we can see in these images that the new structure sits in the footprint of the original church.

Casa D’Estate Linescio, Buchner Bründler

Architects Compared to the CLS office this approach to renovation is much more dramatic and volumetric. This precedent ignores the original innards of its building and prioritises the aesthetics of the contemporary era.

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Tate Modern Extension, Herzog and de Meuron

The integration of the new and old fabric is very good and how the different spatial logics and principles contradict and complement is very interesting to consider.

Kunsthaus Graz, Peter Cook Colin Fournier

I enjoy the way that this building organically grows into it’s surrounding forms, binding itself like a barnacle to the bottom of a ship.

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NA House, Sou Fujimoto

I liked the lightweight appearance of this project as well as it’s modularity, I feel like I could adapt this design so that it could fit within the bounds of the existing fabric

Chatham Dockyard, Baynes and Mitchell

This precedent uses familiar materials, and forms however, has created a building that appears somewhat alien and unfamiliar, something I think will be interesting to consider in my project.

https://www.skellyandcouch.com/images/projects/ Chatham/Chatham_13.jpg

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Figure 63, 64

I concluded my tectonic investigation with my favoured precedents being Fujimoto’s NA House and the Chatham Dockyard building. I appreciated the use of the grid and familiar forms in both of these projects. I then made a return to stage 1 by beginning to mass my intervention using figure cubes, which similarly to my two favoured precedents aimed to experiment with the modular grid, and using familiar forms to make something appear alien.

The materials that were massed in this experiment were to be glass, the existing brick, and yakisugi.

Folding Landscape/East and West, O’Donnell and Tuomey

This installation at the Venice Biennale in 2018 gave me the idea of how to refine my interior programming, as well as beginning to grasp how I can integrate the representational ideologies from the Moon Knight comics into my project.

O’Donnell and Tuomey’s idea of having this intervention, a standalone volumetric form, seeming it appears isolated, however it is part of a much larger idea, this inspired me to begin using...

The Grid...

The Grid

Placing several hundred pins into a block of foam wasn’t the worlds most comfortable experience, however it gave me a useful tool to begin to rationalise the spaces I wanted to integrate into my design as well as the down takings of the existing buildings on the site.

Taking what I learnt from not only O’Donnel and Tuomey but also Fujimoto I used the grid to begin massing spaces

The layers I used to experiment with the building’s usage were as follows:

Gold: the main grid

Dark Green: “Day in the life” of a visitor

Blue: Connections to the Firth of Forth

Light Green: Spaces

Pink: Down takings

Orange: Main connecting spaces

Operational Precedents

I then undertook a couple of studies to understand how the main spaces in my building would work, I paid particular attention to what the room consists of in terms of layout and furniture

Iteration 6: Consolidation of additional interventions

Design Development

Multiple iterations of plans were then made with what I had learnt from my extensive research and I began to formulate my design, I undertook several iterations of plans

Iteration 5: Refinement of interior layout

Iteration 4: Adoption of grid principles

Iteration 3: Simplification of Fujimoto interventions, pier moving

Iteration 2: Development of further buildings, implementation of Fujimoto

Iteration 1