INVENTORY-CONSTRAINED DESIGN METHOD FOR WHOLE TREE USE IN BRANCHING CANOPY STRUCTURES

Timber sourced from plantation forests is an in-demand resource, being natural, renewable, and possessing low embodied carbon. However, it is a finite resource, so the efficient material and structural use of timber in architecture is essential for maximising economic and carbon storage value. This paper introduces a digital design methodology for branching structures, with the aim of designing a branching structural system that supports a given canopy area and is constructed from a given inventory of whole trees. The proposed methodology encompasses three key stages: space-filling canopy distribution, branching topology generation, and inventory-constrained form-finding. The latter is based on the Combinatorial Equilibrium Method (CEM) and incorporates a material length constraint such that each structure uses a single entire tree from a forest inventory. The findings of this study support improved material design efficiency in wood and whole wood construction.