Making week is a yearly event at Central Saint Martins, organised by BA Architecture, during which the pavilions for the final Degree Show are tested and prototyped.

The week-long experimentation process is engaged by both Stage 2 and Stage 3 students, which, collaborating in teams, design 1:1 prototypes that are finally presented at the end of the week.

 

The brief this year focused on collaborating with, and learning from WikiHouse, an open source building system. The aim of the collaboration was to analyse, learn from and critique the WikiHouse project and then design a wooden pavilion responding to that research.

My team, after some experimentation and testing through model-making, adopted a system made of ply boards, cut in a CNC machine, which would constitute the main structural frame and the shelves of each section of the final pavilion.

The shelves are achieved thanks to the shape to which the ply frames are cut into in the CNC machine, which allows some sections of the wood frame to be bent and then fixed to the opposite frame. This system not only creates exhibition space but also holds the frame stiff in compression and tension.