Architecture Exhibition in Kongsberg with REblåkk and RElåve
Published:
Intro
- In spring 2024, two architecture students Christian Opdal and Mats Langeid proposed designs with Omtre’s products REblåkk and RElåve
- In this blog you can learn more about their concepts and drawings for the exhibition in collaboration with Omtre.
- We also asked them to write a short testimonial from an architect's perspective about the collaboration with Omtre.
- The exhibition took place in Quben, Kongsberg Agenda, on Thursday June 20th.
- All text, photographs and designs are provided by Christian Opdal og Mats Langeid.
Introduction to the exhibition "Material banks"
How can we make the material live longer? Half of all waste that is incinerated is wood. That's a huge loss of solid resources that can easily be reused in projects large and small. We want to do something about this. We want reuse to be the rule, rather than the exception, and we're actively working to change the entire cycle that wood faces today. We do this by keeping wood in circulation for as long as possible.
Wall constructed with REblåkk
The exhibition, Material Banks, is a collection of projects/products that explore the potential of the reusable material from Omtre. The material can be both assembled and disassembled, and thus remain what we call material banks. From beautiful barn timber that has been gently dismantled from older buildings, to processed and solid building blocks of solid wood timber. We see these as rich material banks with great opportunities - gold mines.
The life of reusable materials
In the exhibition, we present the life of reusable materials, from dismantled building materials to construction. The aim is to show the long life cycle of reusable materials. The exhibition is divided into three parts: reusable material (from Omtre's warehouse), prototypes and architectural projects. The studies vary in scale and medium, from paper projects with visualisations to physical walls. Part of the exhibition is an excerpt from the diploma thesis ‘Speculations on solid wood’ by Christian Opdal and Mats Langeid.
A clear vision
This is not an exhibition with vague visions of how reusable materials can be utilised, but pragmatic suggestions on how we can start discussing different implementations of, for example, barn wood. Let's stop making rubbish - let's build circularly.
The reuse barn
The reusable barn utilizes reusable barn timber from Omtre, which has been carefully dismantled from older buildings/material banks. In the paper project, we are trying to find opportunities to implement barn timber in a relatively simple hybrid system with a solid wood core and solid wood decks. In addition to utilizing existing tool grooves in the timber, we anticipate that modern CNC machines can mill grooves to assemble the timber into new frames. The system provides great flexibility in the implementation of the barn timber.
Experience of the architects in working with Omtre’s products
In June, Omtre invited us to make an exhibition together with them for Kongsberg Agenda. This was only a couple of days after we had delivered our diploma thesis in architecture, speculations in CLT. However, we were very eager to quickly turn our heels for this great opportunity. For the exhibition, we developed several concepts with Omtre's products and material, and assembled them in the exhibition space. In doing so, we enjoyed working closely with John, Francisco, Nils, Ivar, and Toralf from the Omtre team. Exploring Omtre's infrastructure and building systems around re-use and re-purpose of timber is extremely relevant for the time coming. One of the products we worked with was Re:Blåkk. The building system, made out of excess material from the CLT industry, was intuitive to use and has a huge potential. We would like to thank Omtre for the experience and hope to work with them again!
