Posts tagged pooktre

Tree Walls and Towers

Feb 27th

Posted by Gavin in Misc

Research Group Baubotanik at the Institute of Theory of Modern Architecture and Design in Germany has been heavily researching the use of plants in construction. The idea is not new, but it still needs more testing before becoming a viable eco-friendly construction alternative. They just put up a Baubotanical green tower made of living trees. This prototype structure is located in southern Germany and is going to act as a way to test the construction method’s practicality.

Green Wall Tower

Baubotanical research covers designing load bearing architectural construction using living plants that slowly evolve over time into strong, fully grown trees. This is different from installing living fences or green screens or curtains in that the trees will support heavy structures. The tower above was made of hundreds of young 6 foot tall plants. The plants at the bottom of the tower are in the soil while the rest are planted in containers going up the structure. The containers are resting on temporary steel scaffolding which will be removed once the trees are strong enough to support the platforms themselves. The purpose of the multiple plantings is to speed up the growing process. Just using the trees on the ground might take several decades for them to be tall and strong enough to perform the purpose, but by growing them on multiple layers, the trees can be grafted into each other to grow to be one organism. Using this technique, the growth time is shortened to between 8-10 years. via Science Daily.

That idea would help further a project thought up by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Team H.E.D. [Human Ecology Design] including Mitchell Joachim, Ph.D., Lara Greden, Ph.D. and Javier Arbona, M.S.: Fab Tree Hab.

Fab Tree Hab

The Fab Tree Hab is designed to be grown out of native trees and grafted into shape by reusable scaffolding. The trees would involve arboreal farming and production and keep accountable of the life cycle of the dwelling as a whole. You can see from the image the large trees would be the main frame and support for the house, but even the walls would be made up primarily of living trees.

Fab Tree Hab

That thick green weave you see in the picture would be created from pleaching the trees together. Pleaching is an older technique of encouraging trees to grow into each other by weaving tree branches to create lattices or green screens. Elm, Live Oak and Dogwood would be used as the main load bearing trees and their branches would be weaved together to help form the lattice. It would be helped by vines as well as plants grown in pockets of soil throughout the wall. The overall process would create a dense foliage for the walls.

Fab Tree Hab

Water would be the heart of the structure. It would be collected in a basin in the roof, used by humans and would leave by transpiration. The water would have two streams: one would water the garden and the other would be filtered by a living filter consisting of beneficial bacteria, fish (like in aquaponics) and plants (the roots of the plants help clean the water). The water used by the housing vegetation eventually evaporates which cools the home.

Pooktre – Living Furniture

Feb 23rd

Posted by Gavin in Misc

No comments

Pooktre chair

I just discovered this recent form of eco art. It’s not exactly a living wall, but it’s definitely unique. Pooktre is the art of gradually shaping trees to serve as sculptures or even furniture over long periods of time.

Becky and Peter from Australia (pooktre.com) have grown furniture, tree people and even jewelry directly out of trees. Becky said a necklace can be grown from a seedling in about a year, but some of the larger eco sculptures have taken 8-10 years to create. They don’t actually fertilize or even water unless it’s particularly dry – the just let nature run it’s course while guiding the trees into the shapes they want. The tree species that they used the most are wild plum (Prunus myrobalan) and Black Cheery (Prunus Serotina).

Some of the trees they leave alive in the ground while others are harvested to make very unique furniture and other eye-catching items. Their work is popular as well. In the 2005 world expo, 8 of their pieces went to Japan to be shown.

From an interview Becky had:

Most people seem to think tree shaping takes too long. That’s not how it should be viewed, rather think of it like this: the time you spend shaping a tree is captured by the tree, then amplified. Twenty, thirty, fifty or maybe a few hundred years from now people will be able it see a tree shaping that you did today. Whether or not you chose to shape a tree, the time passes.

Here’s an example of their work from creating a coffee table and mirror to be harvested as furniture. The trees were carefully sculpted as they grew over 5-8 years. The mirror used some of the plant roots to act as a stand.

Coffee Table

Pooktre

Pooktre Mirror

Gradual Tree Shaping Completed

Here’s Becky and the necklace she made out of a sapling. A Topaz was grafted into the the necklace as a pendant. It took a year to grow and another six months to dry out enough to take the bark off. Once that was done, she oiled it and now you see the finished product.

Jewelry

They’ve also crafted some interesting garden figures.. who are.. in a sense.. alive. It’d spice Halloween up for sure.

Garden Figures

Pooktre Garden Figures

Garden Figures

Chris from Grown Up Furniture grows stools from trees.. and only stools. Chris’ goal is to get as many people as possible growing furniture (which really is the ultimate version of sustainable production). He calls it ‘grownup’ furniture as it’s the result of mature thinking. The stool was featured in 2009 in the ‘Salon Habitat Jardin’ held in one of the prestigious department stores in Lausanne.

Grown Up Furniture Stool

Plants have the ability to be joined together through grafting and arborsculpture relies heavily on this. Woody plants are also able (with some persuasion) to retain a shape they have been forced to assume when they grown new layers of wood over the original soft bark. The difference between arborsculpture and Pooktre is arborsculpture is quickly forming trees into shapes while Pooktre involves growing them into shapes gradually.

(Update: Richard Reams from www.arborsmith.com informed me via email that he coined the term arborsculpture before Pooktre and that it involves growing plants into objects using all methods – both slow and fast. I had previously been informed by Becky from www.pooktre.com that pooktre is the art of gradually growing trees into objects and is not the same as arborsculpture. Both creators are very interested in having the work defined correctly and have differing opinions. I’d recommend visiting both sites and emailing the authors if you want further clarification.)

Below is a willow chair that was made with arborsculpture.

Willow Chair

Here’s a tree house/hut made from Ficus in the Bio Park on Okinawa island:

Ficus tree house - arborsmith.com

Tree Trunk Topiaries from Belgium create trees with ornamental trunks. Before they sell the plants, they’ve already spend years in their nursery as the nurture them from cuttings to the final product. They create the shape of the tree during the early growth stages. Even in the same species, their experts pay attention to the location of the branches to ensure each plant looks its best. These trees you could definitely see being used by landscape designers and architects. I’m a fan of the helix and the corkscrew ones.