MultiPly

By Editorial Staff - 29 October 2018

The London Design Festival is an annual event that promotes and celebrates creativity and design. It is a worldwide showcase that, since 2003, has attracted top architects and designers to London. In 2018, for the tenth time, the Victoria and Albert Museum is taking part in the festival with a wide-ranging program of events, workshops and conferences, and is one of the highlights of the festival. From September 15 and for two weeks, the museum courtyard hosted an installation created by Andrew Waugh, from Waugh Thistleton Architects, in partnership with Arup and the American Hardwood Export Concil (AHEC). The work’s raison d’être is to foster debate and new thinking about two extremely topical issues: climate change and the housing crisis. The installation raises the public profile of the benefits and opportunities created by using innovative timber technologies, demonstrating that the industrialization of manufacturing processes and the use of sustainable materials can serve as a valid answer to the problems of today. The work consists of 17 box-shaped modules made out of cross-laminated timber (CLT) panels, which were manufactured at the Construction Scotland Innovation Centre (CSIC). By laying the boxes on top of one another, the architects have created a maze of pathways that visitors were free to explore. Andrew Waugh talks to us about his experience on the project. Can you describe MultiPly, the installation for the V&A’s Sackler Courtyard? Can you explain the project - how it is made up, what were the materials, and what were the planning and construction steps of the installation? The installation that we made here is 17 prefabricated boxes made from cross-laminated timber: that is planks of timber that are laid at 90 degrees to each other and built up in long panels; those panels are then cut down with a CNC - Computer Numerical Control - machine, prefabricated to make boxes. Here in the Sackler Courtyard, we have 17 boxes...