​In collaboration with Rebecca Popowsky

 

Gimme Shelter is a showcase of six temporary, functional woodland shelters to enhance the experience of visitors to the Schuylkill Center for Environmental Education, a 350-acre nature preserve in the Roxborough neighborhood of Philadelphia. The project is meant to build

awareness of the applied possibilities and meaning of sustainability and its impacton our lives

and our connection to the natural world. The competition encouraged collaboration between artists, designers and architects, in order to demonstrate and promote new, unique, and inspiring approaches to sustainable design and building techniques.



​

BAMBOOZE! PROJECT INFORMATION /



The goal of the Bambooze! project is to provide a beautiful and playful outdoor shelter in which visitors to the Schuylkill Center for Environmental Education will be able to relax, enjoy the outdoors, and learn about the pressing issues of sustainability in our built environment. The shelter is a straw bale construction— a demonstration of a highly sustainable, energy efficient building technique that has had success in a wide range of climates and for a variety of building types. Straw bale walls are gaining popularity due to their unparalleled ability to insulate (R 42), their low embodied energy and their availability as a local building material. 



The straw bale walls are supported by a gabion base, which is filled with locally recycled concrete. Recycled glass bottles penetrate the walls, creating playful surface and lighting effects. All of the bamboo for the project was harvested by the Bambooze!  team with the support of local Landowners and the Morris Arboretum. Bamboo is a highly renewable, durable and beautiful

building material that can be found in the immediate vicinity of the project site. Because it is
invasive in our region, the harvesting of wild bamboo is desirable. The bamboo roof slopes toward a rain garden of native ferns. The rain garden demonstrates the importance of putting runoff, from roofs as well as other impervious surfaces, to productive use.



Special Thanks To:

Giacomo Landi, Sonny Popowsky, Cathy Frye, Brian Zilis, Pete Hanby, Tom Michael, Abigail Smith, The Fab Lab, Dennis, Sal, Joe Tab, John Taylor, and The Van (thank you for hanging on)