HAWK Professors build a Green Pavilion with Students on Gran Canaria
Last summer, the two HAWK professors, together with architecture students from the Faculty of Construction and Conservation in Hildesheim and students from the Master's program "Urban Tree and Forest Management" from the Faculty of Resource Management in Göttingen, built a pavilion from the wood of the non-native tree, which is found almost everywhere on the island of Gran Canaria. "In principle, we have successfully demonstrated directly on the island that it is a high-quality construction timber that should not only be removed in favor of indigenous tree species but also - as in our case - can establish a new regional circular chain", says Prof. Dr. Wolfgang Rohe. The special aspect of the project is that the wood is used outdoors.
"It is a very hard, moisture-resistant, fast-growing wood", says architect Prof. Dr. Till Böttger. Under the expert guidance of Carlos Velázquez Padrón, the wood was cut and stored about a year ago in cooperation with a small business using a mobile sawmill and a woodworking vocational school. He is the head of the forestry department of the government (Servicio de Medio Ambiente, Edificio Insular I) and studied forestry in Freiburg. Together with Prof. Dr. Martin Thren and Prof. Dr. Wolfgang Rohe, he paved the way on-site for the cooperation of HAWK with the Universidad de Las Palmas de Gran Canaria (ULPCG) and the government of Gran Canaria, which has existed since 2010. This was formalized in a framework agreement in 2022.
The HAWK delegation brought the "Shaper Origin", a digital router, by plane: "The toolbox with a few clothing items was then my main luggage, weighing just over 20 kilos", says Till Böttger. "This allowed us to produce the pure wood connections without glue directly on-site." In the future, small businesses capable of accepting government contracts could emerge on Gran Canaria. "This creates new jobs, the eucalyptus is pushed back in favor of the Canary Willow, and wood importation, in general, is reduced", summarizes Prof. Dr. Wolfgang Rohe. The first prototype is now a bell-shaped pavilion with a diameter of about 3 meters on a public and heavily frequented park and recreational area in Gáldar (Huertas del Rey). The greening with climbing plants from Gran Canaria is now mainly intended to provide shade. "We designed the use to be multifunctional", says Wolfgang Rohe. In the future, the shift in perspective on the Red Eucalyptus by HAWK on the island should bear fruit. The fruit-bearing plants climbing on the pavilion are also meant to remind of this. In the future, passion fruits and grapes can be harvested at the pavilion.
