Time and Nature for Responsive Wood Architecture. Two Projects of Schools’ Buildings for Temporary and Adaptive Solutions

In this contribution two projects are analyzed to investigate innovative wood applications as dry construction systems for structural and envelope solutions, implementing the aesthetical value of internal and external spaces, the energy performance, and the environmental quality of the “green buildings”. If we are used to thinking of architecture as a discipline that produces solid and permanent structures or to associate massive and heavy materials with the idea of building, we will be surprised to imagine what can be done by experimenting with alternative solutions with a material such as wood, proposing a renewed flexibility and a higher quality, also in this case of temporary structures. Considering time as the fourth dimension of the project is an essential value not only in the approach to bioclimatic and adaptive architecture but also in the innovation dynamics of the urban structure, its cultural relations with the territory, and its possible regeneration processes. The concepts of temporariness and adaptability of architecture take on a completely contemporary character. In fact, if it is known from experience that temporary interventions often negatively affect the functional, morphological, environmental, and landscape quality of the contexts in which they are inserted, the design perspective must also concern the new meaning of temporality of architecture using time as the material itself of the project. This means designing new schools and educational spaces in terms of processes inherent to use/reuse/ recycle, intervening on the existing structures through progressive and incremental grafting tactics.