P26 RESEARCH
Sustainable Materials Research: Cork
At UEL, our teaching and research centres on the role architecture plays socially and materially – the connectivity of these two aspects of building fascinates us. Not only do materials facilitate the making of the spaces we inhabit, they are also the evidence of wider socio-economic and political relations. Where materials are sourced, how they are transformed into architectural components, how they are certified, marketed, profited from, used, removed and recycled – or otherwise, are fundamental aspects of how we design and specify buildings. Cork has a particular social and geographical heritage, the transformation of the wine industry into an industrialised process has left the often small scale farming of cork forests and the habitats they sustain in jeopardy. Reimagining architectural uses for this incredible, sustainable material has been pioneered in the UK by architects with UEL connections, and is an example of the kind of innovation and sustainable ethics that we promote through and with our student body.
carefully researched project that has created a home that inspires those that are lucky enough to visit. A noble, momentous model to aspire to.”
Cork House: MPH Architects MPH Architects was co-founded by UEL teaching alumnus Matthew Barnett Howland, current Senior lecturer Catherine Phillips, and Dido Milne. MPH were executive architects for Cork House, winning four 2019 RIBA awards including the Stephen Lawrence Prize for best building under £1m. The house was short-listed for the Stirling Prize, and was the winner of two Wood Awards including the Gold Award, as well as the Manser Medal for best private house. Executive architects for the project were MPH Architects (directors Matthew, Dido and Catherine Phillips, senior lecturer at UEL). The design for the house was born out of a research project into the structural use of cork headed by MPH Architects, granted by Innovate UK for research into Building Whole Life Performance. Matthew and former UEL student Oliver Wilton also won a 2019 RIBA research award for this work.
Studio Bark and MA Interior Design programme Leader Claudia Palma in partnership with Alan Chandler and Professor Darryl Newport of the UEL Sustainability Research Institute are establishing a research project with APCOR, the Portuguese Cork Association to develop a cork based building system to deliver a community building in Barking Riverside for the charity ‘Shed Life’. Designed by our MArch students, this building provides a centre for vulnerable older and excluded young people to meet, gain skills and develop friendships. Codesigned with the users, the building will be fully sustainable and demountable/re-usable and our partnership with APCOR and SRI gives us the ability to innovate using new applications for cork and systematically monitor the building across a seasonal year. A second building will be erected in the cork producing region of Portugal to monitor southern European climate performance as part of a scientifically underpinned research project, with the aim of product development for the cork industry, designed and built with Studio Bark and our MArch students for community benefit.
The RIBA South head of the judges for the awards commented about the project: “Designed with immense attention to detail, Cork House is a structure of great ingenuity…. form, function and footprint are all equally considered and respected. This is a truly well thought through,
Cork Studio: Studio Bark Studio Bark is a UEL alumni practice teaching annually on our live build programme and this year an MArch ‘Unit 0’ (carbon). Committed to innovative low carbon building, they are winners of the Building Design Sustainability Architect of the Year in 2018. In parallel to developing the award winning ‘U-Build’ system supported by UEL students to develop a digitally enabled self-build timber construction system, the ‘Cork Studio’ was a low cost research prototype that eliminates frames, glues, tapes, breather membranes and wet trades – aiming to determine if cork could be used as the primary structure, not simply as a finishing material or rainscreen. The result is a robust, low cost ecological building which is almost entirely biodegradable and zero waste.
