Wool Tales

Project Background

The craft of architecture is an ancient one: a profession that seeks to unite permanence, utility, and beauty. A fundamental task for architects is to create buildings that fulfil all three aspects, even if how we experience architecture sensory are more challenging to measure and thus deal with in a design process. Architects need knowledge about how to design with a specific material to achieve bodily experiences that results in the material being valued. Furthermore, this knowledge is particularly important for the materials that can contribute to a regenerative culture. This design-driven research is concerned with a material that has this potential, namely Norwegian sheep wool. The following problem framing, and the questions raised within this section, serves as the basis for the thesis.

A first noticeable problem is the current brief lifespan of buildings and building components. In our everyday lives we are surrounded by buildings that have survived the changes of time, which are able to touch us and contain a value. At the same time, we are experiencing newer buildings that are not valued as their older neighbours. This calls for self-examination within the profession. How do we develop functional and durable buildings, which also provides meaning, without harming nature?

A second problem is that architects need more knowledge of how materials can achieve positive experiences that result in buildings being used and reused, cared for, and ultimately recycled. Researchers have started to consider how environmental behaviour is connected to the emotional relationship between people and design (Thorpe, 2010), and the need for research on the immaterial characteristics of materials and architecture have been stated (Fisher, 2004; Karana et al., 2015; Spence, 2020). How do we build with care and responsive attention to the qualities of the materials and context to create sensory qualities?

A third problem is that today Norwegian wool is considered a by-product from farming, while meat is the main product. The current situation is that farmers are paid so poorly for the material that it not always finds its way to the sorting facilities, instead it ends up burned, buried, or dumped at sea (Klepp et al., 2019, p. 18). This means that parts of the agricultural industry result in an unused resource and are not integrated into a circular way of thinking about resources. The Norwegian architectural research and education on bio-based materials is concentrated on wood, which is a well-established resource within industry and national building regulations. To best prepare for an uncertain future, several alternatives should be considered. How drastic should we act to achieve a paradigm shift in material use, when we design sustainable buildings for the future?

A fourth problem is that architects and users do not have many physical examples where wool in construction elements can be qualified, and this makes it difficult to see wool as an alternative and to exchange experiences. Except for upholstery, tapestries, carpet floors, and not least in clothing, there are few examples where wool can be evaluated and examined. Does wool have potential as a sustainable material that can create spatial qualities?

The problems framed and questions asked forms the research questions of the project:

• How do architects and users experience the material wool when used in architecture?
• Does wool have the potential to create meaningful experiences in buildings, by addressing the tectonic expression and the material's sensory qualities?

The project's three dimensions

The primary goal is on a practice-based level, to use sheep wool to create Design-Build projects to gain an understanding of the bodily experiences associated with wool. The thesis focuses on material experiences - understood as the way a material affects our senses, emotions, and actions (Karana et al., 2015). Three dimensions are selected to explore the research questions: (1) Wool, (2) Building Tectonics and (3) Material Experiences. These are investigated on both a theoretical and an applied level, where the investigations are interweaved and explored in parallel [ 2 ].

1 Wool: as an architectural material

Wools potential for architectural use is directly linked to the material’s inherent properties. The purpose is to uncover and integrate knowledge about these properties and about the architectural use of wool, from cultural history, theory, craft techniques, industrial production, and research. To avoid a distancing from the physical material, this is done through material tinkering, exploring production methods [ 3 ], and seeking out relevant products and reference projects. In this way, this dimension forms the basic knowledge needed to use wool in architectural practice.

2 Building Tectonics: wool as part of building construction

The study of wool in building elements is framed by tectonic oriented architecture. Fundamental for tectonic theory is the relation between the aesthetic and structural dimensions of buildings, described by architectural theoretician Kenneth Frampton (1930) as ‘the poetics of construction’ (Frampton, 1995). Architectural theorist Gottfried Semper (1803-1879) embraced the term in his theoretical work, and highlight textile as an essential part in buildings, where he decomposes architecture into four elements: (1) the earthwork, (2) the hearth, (3) framework/roof and (4) the lightweight enclosing membrane as indicating textile (Semper, 1989). His interest in textiles stems from the textile’s ability to enclose and protect. To Semper, the art of joining is to be seen as the basis of constructing, and he uses the thread and the art of joining it through weaving, knots, and seam as an example. This connection between textile and tectonics creates a noteworthy value for this project, which attempts to apply these notions through architectural practice.

This dimension explores the potential of wool as an architectural material by experimenting with the material, through designing and building with it. Through this approach, the findings from the design phase are used to develop experimental buildings with wool as a visible material, focusing on the materials potential to embrace and protect.

3 Material Experiences: perceptions of wool in architecture

Architectural research tends to focus on technological innovations and numerical data to prove a materials sustainability. However, this evidence is not necessarily sufficient for acceptance in society. How a material is experienced will also affect its prevalence. It is argued that it is with buildings as with people; it's the qualitative qualities we fall in love with – that make it worth preserving. For buildings, these qualities are to be experienced in a broader sense, both poetic and in relation to the material’s specific properties. This statement forms the foundation of the thesis and is the background for investigating whether wool can generate such qualities when the material is used in buildings.

The human body have five major senses: hearing, vision, somatic sensation (touch), olfaction (smell), and gustation (taste) – where the latter is usually not so relevant within architecture. When we experience a building, we normally activate all the senses simultaneously. In addition, there is the haptic dimension of the senses that also defines the experience. The haptic can be explained as a union of the somatic senses; kinaesthetic (a sense of movement), proprioception (an internal sense of oneself), the vestibular system (the sense of balance) and the visceral senses (feelings related to the body's internal organs) (Allen-Collinson & Leledaki, 2015). The phenomenological philosopher Merleau-Ponty (1908 – 1961), describes how the body measures in a holistic way, resulting in an embodied knowledge (Merleau-Ponty, 1964, p. 50). The way we use our bodies to move around, such as climbing a staircase or bending under a low opening, articulates a multisensory experience of the architecture.

The purpose of this dimension is to gain insight into these embodied experiences from encounters with the material. The first step will be to explore how people responds when meeting the material in architecture, both physically and emotionally. Furthermore, it will be a goal to identify the material properties that create these various feelings, as the design research is future oriented towards a finished building. This will be executed through human interaction, focusing on peoples’ meetings both with the material itself in the design phase and the finished design-build projects. However, it is not an aim to measure and understand the experiences related to wool in buildings but to identify them and use them as leading factor in the architectural practice.

Methodology

The project is based on architectural practice; through studying and learning from history, theory, and reference projects, through site investigations, through creative work of making drawings, models, and Design-Build projects, and not least, through interaction with people and materials. This explorative research process requires both creative work (and an inside perspective into this work), and systematic reflection. The project is not end-driven as in more traditional hypothesis-seeking projects but is open to being shaped and changed along the way as reflections and discoveries arise through the design process and in meeting people [ 6 ].

This means that this project has a broad approach; with research on design through an investigation of what has previously been done with wool in architecture, methodological research for design to find a suitable research approach for material-driven architecture, and finally what constitutes the main weight of the project – experimental research through design to explore wool's potential as an architectural material (Frayling, 1993).

Outcome

In this project, the act of designing is the tool, both the design and its designers and users are the research objects, and the scientific interpretation of both design and result, is the outcome. The goal is that both the design process itself and the artefact should lead to methodological and theoretical knowledge at a scientific level that can provide answers to whether wool can be used as an architectural material in a way that is valued by people. Hence, the Design-Build projects are used as a tool for the purpose of exploring the research question, and the act of designing and the reflecting is not split but happens along the way and in a continuous loop.

The material wool is the starting point for the architectural design, and in this way forms a ‘material driven architecture’. What can wool do for architecture? And how is the material experienced when used in buildings? This process creates some form of abstract dialogue with the material - it resists and has its own will as some kind of silent, artistic voice. This is how the project is explored together with the material, in an intuitive and sensory experience-based approach. In the same way that the material itself has an influence on the experience, the way the architect has assembled the material into an architectural element has an impact on the senses. Therefore, form, construction and building physics are essential elements to approach phenomenological qualities. In other words, the craft of architecture is a catalyst that gives meaning to matter, by using the tacit knowledge inherent in the practice of the profession. In the tacit knowledge lies the knowledge we cannot express in words, it is an inherent knowledge acquired through action and experience (Polanyi, 2000, pp. 15–33). One could say that design-driven research is a method for bringing tacit knowledge to consciousness.

Along the process, the human interactions will be documented through notes, recordings, photographs, and drawings and at the end summarized in a written account with a phenomenological approach to the experiences. So far, it has been fascinating to see how people are drawn towards the tactile experiences that wool can offer [ 7 ]. How its softness and resilience invite you to play with, cuddle with, or put it on your body - almost like a piece of clothing. I have noticed that this spontaneous attraction seems to decrease the more the material is processed into a felted, knitted, or woven product. Is there something within the raw, untreated material that attracts us and creates some kind of connection with nature?