WORKING ARCHITECTURE GROUP [WAG]

WAG have recently been granted a planning permission for a two bedroom house in Homerton, East London.This new near-zero carbon home is constructed using the Eurban-Merk prefabricated structural timber panel system from Germany. This saves 50 cubic meters of CO2, and also has practical benefits. The site is very tight, making a traditional construction process difficult and costly. However, by using this prefab building system, the main body of the house can be craned into position and built in days.The house is organised with the bedrooms and bathroom on the ground and lower ground floor, as recommended by the BRE and Fire Brigade for energy and safety reasons. The main living spaces are on the split level first floor. A sunken lounge area faces onto a vertical slot of bamboo garden that drops through the house, allowing natural ventilation throughout. A glazed roof panel can slide open to transform the lounge into an open courtyard. Wrapping around this area are the dining and kitchen spaces - a largely timber feel, incorporating our unique self made CADCAM terrazzo mouldings (WAG have prototyped related techniques on previous jobs, such as Central YMCA and Kenworthy Rd, and have run numerous workshops with students researching these techniques, supported by the Concrete Centre.).A staircase leads up to a roofscape that combines a green grass lawn garden on the roof, and solar water heating panels (the basement deal with rainwater harvesting and heat exchanger.)The façade of the building is perforated timber. Fields of small apertures create spectacular lighting situations, and create a sense of privacy for the ground floor bedroom.This scheme  inter-connects many of the research questions that we have been working on in recent years, in both teaching and practice. These include incorporating the use of CADCAM technologies into building production; integrating IT media and intelligence into the building use; working with pattern; and developing a modern architectural expression of holistic ecological thinking by integrating urban and media ecologies, natural and environmental systems, and what the philosopher-anthropologist Gregory Bateson described as “ecologies of mind…. finding the pattern that connects…”