Closing Loops: Silent-box Waste material workshop
The Silent Shelf and The Veil are two sustainable silent boxes for the new open office spaces at Umeå School of Architecture (UMA), designed and built by students of the Architecture Programme year 2-3, Studio 2: Closing Loops, fall semester 2024. The silent boxes are made from waste materials found and harvested at UMA. By experimenting with assembly methods such as joining, casting, pressing, and weaving new design strategies that embrace the uncertainty of the 'lost and found' were tested. UMA serves as a testbed for reusing and recycling materials, integrating urban mining and a zero-waste strategy for our closest vicinity.
The requirements limit the size of the meeting booth for 4 people to a maximum size of 2.00 x 2.00 x 2.30 m to meet the acoustic standards of an office space for both external and internal noise. In a two-day preliminary pitch, 10 proposals were submitted by students for implementation and all of UMA was invited to digitally vote for their favourite model. Two of the top four proposals were further developed by reusing a former computer lab partition and leftover liners from the local paper industry. The design and construction phase among the 38 students allowed for a high degree of flexibility and adaptability to coordinate interfaces on as part of an ad-hoc planning and decision-making basis process. True to the motto 'Thinking through doing', we welcome you to our two beautiful low-cost silent boxes where you can meet and plan your next step. This project is part of the sustainability@UMA initiative.
Teaching Team: Constanze Hirt, Nina Larsson, Maja Hallén, Joël Jouannet.
