AKT II’s Post

Our Date Palm Frond timber structure rises!    With less than three weeks to go until the opening of the #Islamicartsbiennale, most of the frame is up, which will be followed by hanging of the the handwoven screens and casting of the mud floor.   This building hosts:   ✅ 90 m3 of date palm frond timber glulaminated into the sections needed ✅ 200 km of hand woven palm leaf rope coloured with natural dyes (which has reaffirmed to me that true craft does indeed still exist!) ✅ Stools, mats, and other furniture all made from palm fronds  ✅ 3 m3 of steel for shoes to connect to the foundation, reinforcing where services distribution is needed, and for element splicing to make it fully demountable (ensuring its life after the biennale and beyond!) ✅ A mud floor construction to complement the sustainability narrative.   We hope to show the world how a perceived waste product can be used to create a beautiful building, and how with a bit of unconventional construction we all can put a dent into the 2.7 million tons of date palm waste that is produced every year.   What other ‘waste’ materials can we put to good use?    AKT II EAST Architecture Studio Sweco Diriyah Biennale Foundation Hanif Kara OBE Nawaf Bin Ayyaf Nicolas Fayad Charles Kettaneh, Rayyane Tabet David Watson Jose Leonel Mimendi Cruz Talal AlObaid Biennale Saudi Arabia #architecture #engineering #construction #sustainability #experimentalmaterial #climatechange #timber