writer’s pod

ALPOLIC Materials, a  division of Mitsubishi Plastics Composites America, Inc, has a building industry product that also lends itself intrinsically to methods of digital (CNC) fabrication.  The product can be found behind and in front of everything from highway billboards to corporate offices to fast food franchises… and until recently has flown under the radar with smaller scale design and fabrication projects..Mitsubishi is looking to change this market limitation.

Looking for an innovative, cost effective way to capture the energy of designers toward this material, SUM pitched the idea to Mitsubishi to sponsor a material and design R&D sequence within an academic studio environment.  Andre Caradec of SUM, along with advanced architectural students from California College of the Arts (CCA) where given the task of pushing new building techniques and developing a project within a particular market segment.

The developed project looks opportunistically at two important premises:

1. State building codes that allow small structures to be placed in residential zones.

2. The growing trend of detached home offices.