Explorations in Terra Cotta: Designing a Sustainable Green Wall

KPF Recaps their ACAW 2020 project – Explorations in Terra Cotta: Designing a Sustainable Green Wall
SOURCE: kpfstories
IMAGES: KPF Renderings

KPF’s Darina Zlateva, Director, Marianne Kwok, Director, Chuqi Liu, Architectural Designer, and Asli Oney, Digital Fabrication Manager, alongside Gustav Fagerstrom of Walter P. Moore, discussed their quest for sustainable materials and the development of a terra cotta green wall, for the 2020 Architectural Ceramic Assemblies Workshop (ACAW).

ACAW is a hands-on research and development workshop for architects and façade engineers to explore the use of terra cotta in high-performance façade design. The workshop’s objective is to introduce and consider the properties of terra cotta earlier in the architect’s design process and to develop research and design models between manufacturing and architectural industries useful to the efficient production of high-performance façade solutions.

When tasked by the client to build a “green wall” in the building lobby, the KPF team decided on terra cotta for its sustainability and versatility.

The team designed the wall to take advantage of terra cotta’s adaptability, creating hundreds of individual cells that link to one another, forming a façade that extends up the wall and horizontally onto the ceiling.

You can watch the team’s virtual presentation here.

If you’re interested in learning more about ACAW or participating in a future workshop, visit http://bostonvalley.com/acaw/