Making a Living

Professor: Brent Sturlaugson - 2022 

Studio Appalachia is a multidisciplinary studio that integrates students directly with town civilians to address site-specific projects that have a context within the community. To address a need for a sustainable alternative to coal on a mountaintop removal site, this Cross Laminated Timber (CLT) manufacturing was proposed in conjunction with the “Making a Home” housing project, located outside of downtown Hazard, Kentucky. The reclamation and activation of this extracted land create awareness of past mining and propose an alternative economic solution with the production of mass timber products. The factory is oriented off the site’s main road and encourages public engagement within the viewing patio space and landscape interacting installation. Through the process of harvesting, cutting, gluing, and pressing the CLT plant can provide a resource that can be utilized in other project applications, such as the co-project “Making a Home”, a modular housing system. 

Done in collaboration with Interior Design Graduate Student, Peiwen Qi, this project was completed in the context of a larger initiative called Studio Appalachia. This program works with community partners in Eastern Kentucky to try to realize projects that entered into a larger context of community needs.