Artifact - structural construction made of branches

The history of the creation of this modest structure is very unique. We received a brief for a tower in Prague 14 in a future extensive park. We developed three designs: one of them was a completely unusual structure made of young saplings, with which we had no prior experience, but on the land in Horní Maxov, where our second studio is located, several kilometers of them have grown, and so we were naturally tempted to try doing something with them out of sheer interest in the penetration of nature into structural systems. To our great joy, but also to our great surprise, this very tower was chosen by Prague 14 for realization. We said to ourselves that we must first try such a structure, and thus this artifact was created. We called it an artifact to distinguish it from a building. It is not a building; it is a pure experiment aimed at demonstrating what such a structure can do. Some say it looks a bit like a woman’s backside. A distant resemblance could be found. But the essence of the matter was to test in every respect how such a construction made of young ash and maple saplings could look, how it can be assembled, and what its static properties are. It is a preparation for the construction of the tower.
This construction demonstrates our effort to continue in natural systems with all their inaccuracies, randomness, and unpredictable elements. But watch out, there is also something extra that could now be called the very popular term "from cradle to cradle." We use material that is usually either left to rot or is maximally cut into logs and burned in stoves. We have delayed the burning in stoves by about 15 - 20 years. It is architecture that leaves no traces behind and uses material that has never been used in any way and was essentially waste. At the same time, it is very close to constructions in the third world. It is a path that leads us away from plans to something that is soft, random, and unpredictable. And that is why it is so important to have a gifted architect – sculptor David Kubík involved, under whose firm hand those beautiful curves were constructed and created by students at the workshop.