Packman Lucas
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Arts & Curiosities
Crawley Wood Commision
- Designer - Fred Baier
- Location - West Sussex
- Project Value - £20,000
When Ifield Community College was developed several trees were felled to clear the site, including one particularly large oak, some 150 years old. Unusually West Sussex County Council decided not to simply cut up and remove the largest of these trees, but to enlist furniture designer Fred Baier to turn it into something special. Fred has a wealth of experience in art and design and this coupled with his familiarity with timber and his recent movement into large scale public design made him the ideal candidate for this project. Fred developed his ‘Journey Through a Log’ and came to Packman Lucas for the required structural engineering.
Special consideration was given to the ground movements and their effect upon the sculpture. With no budget for soils testing we took a spade out and dug up a sod of earth to have a look what was underneath. Fortunately the underlying clay was present close to the surface with a light sand content. Some assumptions upon its bearing capacity gave a required bearing area for the log. The flexibility of the log would actually work in our favour in this case, allowing each row of support along the length to have some movement relative to the next row, without a significant effect upon the tree itself.
When working on this kind of unique project understanding the potential loadings that can occur is essential. Wind loading was not a consideration for something that people could, and probably would, actively attempt to push over. The corridor through the middle provided an opportunity for someone to try and push the two halves apart. To combat this ties were put at the top and bottom of each run of supports. The timber was still green and consideration had to be given to future movements to ensure the timber wouldn’t not split itself to the extent that it fell apart as it moved and deformed over time. The piece is bound to cause itself some damage as the moisture content of the timber changes over time, and it was important that this was considered so that the damage caused would not be destructive to the structure as a whole
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