TEXT Trevor Boddy
PHOTOS Ema Peter, unless otherwise noted
Cavities within the CLT floor of the Wood Innovation Design Centre’s section accommodate services. Floor chases are covered with an acoustic insulated subfloor with cut-out panels to provide access.
It can be a sticky business when prominent architects get overly associated with a single construction material. While he had an early career as a design critic and polemicist, in his later role as building-oriented architect Le Corbusier was a vocal champion of reinforced concrete, notably through his design for the Dom-Ino system for housing construction. But Dom-Ino was never applied in its pure form in his lifetime, and technically, Le Corbusier was not much of an innovator. The look, feel, associations and texture of his beloved béton brut were important to his architecture, especially the late works, but he was not personally disposed to?or skilled in?inventing new modes of construction. Corbu was a genius not of technique, but rather of aesthetics?architecture students always presume more of his white villas are built of cast concrete than is actually the case. Contrast this with the buildings of his former employer: behind the neo-classical façades of Auguste Perret?s rue Franklin Apartments or the Théâtre des Champs-Elysées, one finds true technical innovation. The same is true of Frank Lloyd Wright, who innovated in concrete because his designs demanded it, from the early Wisconsin warehouses to Fa...