RUBI LAB

Wooden Links is a home design that deploy innovative construction methods to upcycle waste wood and irregular tree logs for housing. The project takes advantage of both a modular system and robotically fabricated wood façade to create diverse configurations of home units as well as customizable semi-outdoor living spaces. Constructed with modular Structural Insulated Panel (SIP), the design is organized by sectional slices that can aggregate linearly, shift, rotate, and stack. The modular rulesets enable the various unit sizes and configurations. 

Wooden Links also addresses an environmental crisis of Ash Tress in North America. The robotically customized wooden façade upcycles and transforms infested and dying ash trees into an abundantly available and affordable building material for sustainable wood construction. By implementing high precision 3D scanning and robotic based fabrication technology, irregular tree logs are sliced into naturally curved boards to form a customizable wood envelope for balconies and screens. The undulating panels create novel design expression that are reminiscent of the natural log geometry.  

At the cluster scale, three housing bars are linked together by the wooden skin to form a community courtyard. At the inlet site, a network of clusters integrate community program and shared semi-private zones. Wooden Links combined the responsible use of natural material and innovative use of digital technologies to facilitate new tectonic articulation and forms of construction at the housing scale.