How to CLT 3.0 - Collaborating with CLT

Thanks to funding by ARQ and Stockholms Byggnadsförening, and with support from Svenskt Trä, we have once again made an update to our research project How to CLT! In a new chapter of our CLT handbook, we propose 6 principles for a closer collaboration between the consultants that we believe will foster innovation, architectural quality and efficiency when working with CLT. Furthermore, our Grasshopper definition has been updated with additional functionality and the possibility to work with more complex volumes.

In her research Rivka Oxman, architect and researcher on computational design and methods, concludes that the shift towards a material based design will deeply challenge and re-formulate how architects, structural engineers, fabricators etc. collaborate. As buildings must deal with an increasingly complex set of challenges (not least to do with their environmental impact) and the dynamics between consultants change, the time is ripe to establish close collaboration as the industry standard.

The current situation could be compared to the industry’s shift from CAD to BIM in the 2000s. An opportunity that promised revolutionary changes to interdisciplinary collaboration, that in many ways seem to have been lost due to an unwillingness to change traditional processes. The still relatively liquid state of processes and methodology regarding CLT could be seen as yet another chance to improve interdisciplinary collaboration, especially between architects and structural engineers.

The benefits of a tighter collaboration are generally agreed upon throughout our sources and respondents, but considerable barriers exist for it to become an industry norm. Close collaboration between architects and structural engineers in the early stages must, for example, in some form include a cross-disciplinary formulation and testing of conceptual designs. In our general experience, working with structural engineers is a rather linear process and occurs in the later stages of the building project. The conceptual design of a building is on the other hand an iterative process, going back and forth between sketching and evaluation.

The difference in methodology and the costs it would add, makes it unreasonable to include a structural engineer as an equal part of the
conceptual design. Such a set-up would also risk putting too many technical limitations on the design in a stage that thrives from creative
thinking. The collaboration that we propose in our new chapter should rather be thought of as an early engagement of the structural engineer as a sounding board, available to evaluate the structural challenges of a sketch or an early design.

Best of Luck with your CLT endeavors! // Arkemi

How to CLT 3.0 - Collaborating with CLT

Ndarugu CLT-prototype building raised in Kenya

All the way back in 2019 we were asked by Arvet Trä to explore how a modular CLT-system could be employed to imagine a densely built yet highly qualitative urban fabric for students in Kenya. The result was Ndarugu Student City, a scheme involving everything from the design of the individual module to the urban planning. We are now excited to announce that a prototype building made up of four of the modules has been raised on site in Kenya!

Arkemi co-authors CLT guide in collaboration with Svenskt Trä

How to CLT, our research project concerning the early design of buildings constructed with Cross Laminated Timber, has caught the interest of the Swedish forest industry. In collaboration with Tomas Alsmarker (Svenskt Trä) and with the support of CLT-producers Martinsons, Setra and Södra we have now co-authored a CLT guide for the early stages, to be distributed for free by Svenskt Trä.

Arkemi takes part in MANI-FEST

In september 2023 the office travelled to Malmö for the launch weekend of MANI-FEST, an exhibition and publication by SPARK, where 15 young Swedish architects were invited to craft their own manifestos. The weekend featured a series of roundtable discussions, including one themed "a rejection of the present age", in which Kayrokh participated.

Key Lessons of Reuse

If you haven’t heard yet, reuse is the new use. An increasing number of architects and contractors are opting to incorporate second-hand elements over newly produced alternatives. Reclaiming building materials was the norm for centuries because of how resource efficient the practice is. Somewhere along the way, however, this stopped being standard practice in modern societies.