Timber Scooper

Timber Scooper is a fabrication technique designed for recycling solid wood. It optimizes digitally the re-surfacing treatment of abandoned wood to create an organic 3D pattern. This scooping algorithm was designed to be open sourced for the use of other designers in order to promote sustainable design.

Teak flooring has been widely used from the 1950s onwards. When buildings are demolished, concrete is usually recycled for laying roads and foundation. However, rest of combustible construction materials go into landfill, including these valuable teak. The aim of Timber Scooper is to prolong the life-cycle of construction materials.

This design & fabrication project seeks to provide a way out to the wood recycling practice in Hong Kong. It promotes a more sustainable design methodology to be practiced by architects when using wood as material. Such design methodology runs parallel with a fabrication technique developed for the optimization of wood re-surfacing.

With the help of computation and digital fabrication, the architect can be well informed of the production, or re-production in this case, on construction materials and begins to take control over the fabrication proces