The brief from the organisers was to make an entrance and marker sign for the 2019 festival, hosted by the Holburne Museum in Bath. The theme was ‘Life Line’ and the structure sits on the axis of a grand classical street, in front of the impressive Holburne Museum.
The concept of the piece was to deconstruct and reconstruct a tree, and effectively turn it inside out. As visitors arrived at the festival, the structure presented a curious new perspective on the make-up of a tree and how it is used in construction.
Most of the timber used in the project was reclaimed and re-milled from our Wiltshire Yard. Occasionally, a particular section of the oak that comes to us isn’t suitable for structural framing, due to natural variances in the timber and our rigorous timber grading process. Rather than turn this stock into firewood, we store it for projects such as these, where innovation and creativity are the driving factors behind experimental and unusual builds.
The project is a collaboration between Carpenter Oak, Invisible Studio, Charley’s new venture Xylotek and Momentum Engineering. The design and build of the structure were on a cost basis to support the work of the festival.
“Carpenter Oak did an extraordinary job managing and constructing the Forest of Imagination Pyramid. They have an expertise that is second to none in terms of complex timber structures, and perhaps the best team of skilled carpenters in the world. The project simply could not have happened without Carpenter Oak, and the broad skillset that they brought to the project from design through construction management”
Piers Taylor, The Invisible Studio
Photography: Colin Hawkins – courtesy of Carpenter Oak, Xylotek, Momentum and Invisible Studio.
