A Method for Designing with Deadwood for Architectural Acoustics

This paper presents the investigation and proposition of how to analyse and design with deadwood as a material resource, and how it can be applied as advanced acoustic design in architecture. The study is focused on Poplar wood in progressed decay, where visual, structural and sound characteristics are analysed and discovered through material studies, prototype studies, computational studies and measurement studies. The research findings have environmental, technical and aesthetical consequences for how we understand and rethink material resources, their structural state and how we can understand biogenic material transformations as part of the design process. Processes lead to a better understanding of using the regenerative materials we have available on the planet. The specific research contributions are increased knowledge of poplar density variances from natural decay and how density variance impacts sound absorption properties of the material and spaces. Furthermore, a new method for descriptive and prescriptive acoustic design processes is presented, based on image-analysis methods. This research and its findings are argued to open novel pathways for material practices as an approach that engage with biogenic material agency, which in turn empowers architecture to address urgent questions of material scarcity and material-climatic relations driven by the built environment.