Within the duration of the Material Production Course, students will create and manufacture various biobased materials which will be used in the Final Prototype Construction. This process will involve transforming raw substrates into finished products through a series of steps such as extracting, processing, and finishing. The types of materials to be produced will be decided through the prototype design development process.
Students will work with the Valldaura Labs/IAAC team to design and manufacture a variety of materials for use in the Final Prototype. The process of production follows these steps:
1. Extraction: The primary extraction of raw materials has been completed during the Forest Management Course.
2. Processing: The extracted raw materials will undergo processing to improve mechanical performance, increase dimensional stability and transform them into usable forms.
3. Refining: Depending on the material to be produced, this may include; milling, planing, sanding, routing, laminating, pressing, or applying finishes.
4. Quality Control: Throughout the process of production, the materials should be tested to ensure they meet the standards of; durability, dimension, strength as well as visual quality.
5. Recycling and Waste Management: Proper waste management will be followed to minimize environmental pollution, optimize resource utilization and repurpose ‘waste’ as a resource.
6. Traceability and Carbon Accounting: Throughout the entire material production process strategies will be developed, implemented, and documented in order to maintain a detailed record of the origin of all material substrates as well as their embodied carbon accounting for every transformation.
The list of materials to be produced should be:
• Consisting of Structural Elements, Envelope Components, and Junctions if necessary
• Made of Valldaura wood as the primary construction material
• Fully modular and prefabricated
• Manufactured using the Green FabLab and Carpentry tools and machinery
• Built only of construction materials fully traced to their sources of origin
• Net-negative carbon
This years Material Production started after the final design for the prototype was chosen and ran parallel to the further development of the design. The main goals were: – to monitor the amount, humidity and density of the locally sourced aleppo pine wood – to simulate production flows in the workshop (tools and time needed, … Read more
