Graduate architecture student
Austin, U.S.
Submission: "Forest Canopy"
To create a spectacular living, metabolizing system including passive solar heating, natural ventilation, and rainwater collection.
To snake through the forest with minimal disruption, as to be light on the land.
To use building materials, methods, and techniques that enhance the structure’s lightness and transparency.
To use prefabricated containers for learning centers to minimize impact on the forest.
To show a willingness to stand contorted to reflect the trees’ struggle to survive.
These were the five project goals, stated by third year architecture student Parker Williams in 2001, for his design of a Forest Canopy Study Center. “I was interested in embracing the lightness and transparency of the forest and examining the degradation of the forest around the world, giving visitors a new paradigm on environmental awareness [and] a critical mindfull-ness of their life and way of living. This is reflected in the center’s siting, building materials, construction methods, environmental technology, and marketing.”
Parker Williams is a graduate student at the University of Texas at Austin. From 1999-2003 he studied at Ball State University where he earned a professional degree in architecture. As part of his studies Williams enrolled for one semester at the Denmark International Studies Program in Copenhagen and interned in the office of Hamzah & Yeang in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Before enrolling at UT-Austin he worked with AmeriCorps for one year organizing Habitat for Humanity construction sites near Dallas, Texas.
"Amazon deforestation: six football fields a minute"
"Amazon destruction: six football fields a minute,” Greenpeace International, May 24, 2005, HYPERLINK "http://www.greenpeace.org/international/news/amazon-destruction" (accessed February 1, 2006).