LORANTHACEARCHITECUTRE
My project using Khao Luang as an experimental platform for a sculpture like architecture that enhance experience of hiking, creating a habitable sculpture that will replace a typical camping that use a synthetic materials which are out of the environmental context, hence becoming a part of the forest, which are also a new habitable space.
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| Khao Luang Map - Activities and Patrolling Routes |
Khao luang is one of the richest national park that provide critical habitat for a variety of animals—in some cases, they are the only places that threatened or endangered species have left to call home. the mountain consist of various types of tropical rainforest canopy, due to its peak is as high as 1860 meter above sea level, and are being threatened every minutes, especially the forest margin, where it is being invaded by the locals, vast majority of the forest are being cleared out for rubber plantation and other agriculture.
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| Ever Green Forest Section - Hornbill Diet |
And these specific area are habitat of one of the most majestic wildlife, hornbill, to be specific, the white crowned hornbill. They are a large bird that can grow up to almost 80 cm in size, but they are a stealthy predator comparing to its size, flying quietly under the forest canopy and hop along the branches scouting for its prey. Even though major diet of hornbill are fruits because it is their water sources, but the favorites are always meat of a small animals or even insects.
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| Tree Hollow - Hornbill Natural Nesting |
During a mating season, in the early of May they will find their partner which will be living together for its life, and starting to find a place to lay eggs, the interesting part is their nest, they need to find a hollow to nest inside, they will seal off the entrance around May and June, and the female will imprison themselves inside to lay eggs and nursing their kids for up to four months. They will usually come back to the same hollow every year and use it as long as possible. These hollow occurs naturally, from a broken branch that expose the softwood to the weather, and in the wet and humid environment, a microorganism such as fungus began to grow and degenerate the softwood. And as they are in there, the tree began to heal itself, as the times goes by, then it creates a hollow. So the nesting are very limited for hornbill because it is a long difficult process for one hollow to be occurred, and in nature, a live tree, it will regenerate itself and might close up the hollow, and in dead tree, it will decay and get destroyed by the weather or being eaten by termite. And there are also human influence such as deforestation that decrease their habitat dramatically.
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| Forest Ranger Gears |
This is why patrolling is essential to khao luang and its wildlife, patrolling in is a no an easy task, only five people have to cover ten of hundreds or even thousands square kilometer. So the ranger have to go out regularly, every time they go out, they are carrying up to 20 kg of stuff, in order to patrol only 5 days. And every day they add in patrolling the more weight they have to carry, approximately 1.5 kg more per day, this makes increasing the number of patrolling days is decreasing in the efficiency of patrolling.
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| Unit Design - Human Proportion |
So in order to increase the hornbill limited nesting hollow and enhance the efficiency of patrolling and wildlife conservatory, i have design a unit, base on human proportion and criteria of living, to make it comfortable but as light and compact as possible, and also imitate the natural habitat of hornbill nesting.
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| Joint Design - Construction and Materials |
The units are constructed by using a joint that was design by using all existing construction materials, that are cheap and can be found easily, they are consist of PVC pipe, L metal bracelet, I mental bracelet, screw and bolt. The joint have four connecting points, two big connection for creating a frame and two small one is for connecting one frame to the others. The connection point are flexible and can be adjust to creating any angle suitable for each unit.
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| Constriction Process |
These unit are to be constructed on site, by choosing the tree in the range of main canopy layer, a big and strong tree that have enough branches to use as a supporting structure , such as a Dipterocarpaceae family, constructed on the ground using joints to connect twigs and branches that can be found in the area, completing one unit and and lift up to the tree using the weight of human and gravity, stacking the unit together creating a series of habitable sculpture that can be recognized as a camping spot and then using clay to cover that unit to reinforce and combining it to become one with the tree.
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| Natural Overtaking |
The unit entrance of human and bird are different the windows are imitation of hollow in term of dimension and shapes to makes hornbill recognize the unit as a possible nesting space. The unit are to be used regularly by the ranger but is to be preserved in the period of hornbill mating season, in this period, the human entrance of the unit will be sealed of using clay leaving only a small opening of windows for hornbill to entered.
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The usage of these units are not only improve the patrolling efficiency buy also enhance the hiking experience of tourists, the hiking trail that we use are the same trail with the animals, so along the way we can see the trace of animals that they leave behind such as footprints, the marks on the tree, or sometimes even the sound of it. Most of the animals Nocturnal animals, which will be active at night, they are very sensitive to sound and smells, so by living on top of to tree, we are hiding our presence, hence we can use the unit to observed and monitoring wildlife and also prevent us from dangerous animals.
And this is my project, a sculpture like habitable architecture adaptable to any tree anatomy which enhance hiking and patrolling experience and also profitable for natural wildlife.
