Easily deployed and assembled, UNLOG unfolds several logs into an undulating and lightweight biomaterials A-frame structure. The installation provokes new methods of framing for timber construction and promotes the use of hardwood trees devastated by the ongoing Emerald Ash Borer (EAB) epidemic in North America. UNLOG utilizes robotic kerfing techniques and Mixed Reality tools to transform dying Ash trees into a materially efficient, valuable resource. Using only 6.5 logs, threaded rods, and custom recycled HPDE washers, UNLOG investigates how far a single log can be stretched – both literally as an assembly and figuratively as a resource.
Unlog
Charlottesville, VA. 2022.
HANNAH project Leadership & Principal Investigators: Leslie Lok and Sasa Zivkovic / Project Manager: Lawson Spencer / AR and MR Fabrication: Alex Htet Aung Kyaw & Yehong Mi / Fabrication & Robotics: Chi Zhang, Shengkun Yang, Lauren Franco, Sahil Adnan, Andrea Zvonar / Illustration: Shujie Young Liu & Shuo Feng / UVA Project Manager: Collette Block / UVA Workshop Participants: Brandon Bonner, Joshua Cauthen, Abigail Hassell, Makaela-Ann Johansen, Dina Luo, Jacob McLaughlin / Assembly Team: Elizabeth Carroll, Sawyer Davies, Ammon Embleton, Geoffrey Ford, Bucky Gerson, Sun Park, Charlotte Pitts, Eli Sobel.
Sponsors: The Jefferson Trust / UVA Center for Global Inquiry & Innovation / UVA School of Architecture / Cornell AAP College of Architecture, Art, and Planning / Cornell Arnot Teaching and Research Forest / Cornell Atkinson Center for a Sustainable Future
Special Acknowledgement: The Full Log Kerfing method was first developed by Savannah Chasing Hawk in the Timber Villa Option Studio at Cornell University in 2017, co-taught by Sasa Zivkovic and Christopher Battaglia. The project was subsequently refined in Savannah Chasing Hawk’s B.Arch Thesis called Timber: New Industrial Age (2017), advised by Assistant Professor Sasa Zivkovic and Professor Henry Richardson.
Photography: Nana Iso