Athletes maximise their bodies to achieve incredible feats of strength, speed, endurance, and dexterity. Architecture and engineering can also perform toward the limits of what is possible. Some structures are more efficient than others, in particular ‘stressed skins’ or ‘bent-active’ structures. Use of the ‘surface’ as structure means that every part of what you see can be active, and this has the potential to be extremely strong compared to its weight. In addition, folded surfaces have visual depth and may catch light.

The studio is interested in timber for multiple reasons, but primarily availability, workability, and circularity. The projects work with a restricted palette of thin panelised plywood, plus whatever is necessary for connections, and focus on how to get the most from it, physically and visually.

Large and thin surfaces bend easily and need to be developed into stiffer and stronger forms by folding or forming. How do you connect with thin materials that want to ‘spring back’? How do you stabilise the form while fixing? In the studio physical prototyping and experimentation is fundamental to form-finding and a design idea should be tested iteratively.