STUDIO ANDREW TODD
Modest House in Solid Wood
An ongoing research and development project which examines the properties of monospecies solid wood for structure, cladding, finishes and furniture.
Trees -which cannot move- are subject to geopolitics. Siberian slow-growth larch -a noble and polyvalent resource- has been unavailable for several years because of the war in Ukraine. Looking around Wetsern Europe, no ‘local’ wood can do quite the same job (because of climate and location: the very short northern growing season produces tight rings, and the wood is denser). Looking further afield, there are other solutions which we have not needed to try before, such as Hinoki cypress, one of the noblest craft woods in Japan, encountered by practice director Andrew Todd during his residency at the Villa Kujoyama in 2015.
This project aligns craft and material exchange with the frugal ambitions of the Case Study Houses: making wonderful spaces with limited resources, in this case carbon-capturing materials. The modest, tightly-planned 62 square metre house can be built by two people without lifting equipment and without masonry foundations. It is a pilot project to exchange knowledge and materials in partnership with the French Embassy in Japan, engineers Eckersley O'Callaghan, contractors Rectobois and carpenter Théo Edline.