Sylvan Scrapple
The award-winning design for Sylvan Scrapple in Columbus, Ind. bridges food waste resourcefulness and design technology advances with a focus on circular construction.
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Hadley Fruits for Landmark Columbus FoundationFrom Above -
Leonid FurmanskyLooking west down 5th Street -
After ArchitectureLooking east toward Henry Moore’s Large Arch -
After ArchitectureOverlook and Seating Alcove -
After ArchitectureExisting brick planter wall augmented with custom welded gabion cage and filled with salvaged bricks from the Irwin Block (1892-2022) and First Christian Church tower (1942-).
Project highlights: Sylvan Scrapple
- Architecture firm: After Architecture
- Location: Columbus, Ind.
- Category: One
- Project site: Previously developed
- Building program type(s): Other
Designed for an exhibition organized by the Landmark Columbus Foundation in Columbus, Indiana, Sylvan Scrapple draws parallels between waste in cooking and construction to advance the dialogue around circular construction. Situated between Columbus’ Visitors Center and the Cleo Rogers Memorial Library, the project, built from nonlinear logs and salvaged materials, shapes a series of intimate spaces and a wooded oasis.
The project was a focal point of the fourth biannual cycle of Exhibit Columbus, the first to have an open call for participants. Its theme, Public by Design, sought university design research fellowship projects to respond to a recent downtown activation study through design and community engagement . The team was one of seven selected from a national pool of nearly 50 applications.
At its core, Sylvan Scrapple is a research pavilion designed to test, prove, and demonstrate new construction technologies while presenting the public with a new material ethos. The project conveys this through post-tensioned curved wood walls fabricated with a robotic sawmill the team invented. Using wood from trees that were felled by a 2022 storm, the team cut the material into 3-inch-wide curved boards and stacked them to create snaking walls. It also features a reused brick gabion system, with bricks harvested from neighboring sites, and a bio-resin table that includes offcuts from the project’s construction.
Spatially, Sylvan Scrapple is carefully scribed to its site, where it engages with an existing brick planter at the edge of a substantial public plaza designed by I.M. Pei. A single curved wall winds itself into and out of the planter, beckoning the public into the raised landscape. A series of decks and wall segments form intimate spaces for gathering and eating, offering a human-scaled respite from the monumental paved plaza. For several weeks after the project was installed, the scent of fresh wood lingered throughout the block, providing a multisensory awareness of the material strategy.
The project hinges on a 15-foot dining table formed with bio-resin and scraps that stages its own exhibition. Titled Table Scraps, the exhibition is a collection of recipes that capitalize on food waste combined with visual scraps and place settings. Each of the featured recipes is presented as a life-sized placemat.
Framework for Design Excellence measures
Was there a design charrette? Yes
Level of community engagement:
Inform: Potential stakeholders were informed about the project.
Consult: Stakeholders were provided with opportunities to provide input at pre-designed points in the process.
Involve: Stakeholders were involved throughout most of the process.
Collaborate: A partnership is formed with stakeholders to share in the decision-making process including development of alternatives and identification of the preferred solution.
Empower: Stakeholders were provided with opportunities to make decisions for the project.
Site area that supported vegetation (landscape or green roof) pre-development: 90%
Site area that supports vegetation post-development: 90%
Site area covered by native plants supporting native or migratory species and pollinators: 100%
Strategies used to promote Design for Ecosystems: Biodiversity, Dark skies, Bird safety, Soil conservation, Habitat conservation, flora/fauna, Abatement of specific regional environmental concerns
Is potable water used for irrigation? Not applicable
Is potable water used for cooling? Not applicable
Is grey/blackwater reused on-site? Not applicable
Is rainwater collected on-site? Not applicable
Stormwater managed on-site: Not applicable
2030 Commitment baseline EUI: 0 kBtu/sf/yr
Predicted net EUI including on-site renewables: 0 kBtu/sf/yr
Reduction from the benchmark: Not applicable
Is the project all-electric? Not applicable
Level of air filters installed: Not applicable
Was a “chemicals of concern” list used to inform material selection? Yes
Do greater than 90% of occupied spaces have a direct view to the outdoors? Yes
Were embodied carbon emissions estimated for this project? No
Estimated service life: 30 years
Floor area, if any, representing adapting existing buildings: 100 %
Ability to survive without utility power: Not applicable
Risk assessment and resilience services provided: Not applicable
Has a post-occupancy evaluation been conducted? Not applicable
Building performance transparency steps taken:
Present the design, outcomes, and/or lessons learned to the office.
Present the design, outcomes, and/or lessons learned to the profession.
Present the design, outcomes, and/or lessons learned to the public.
Publish lessons learned from design, construction, and/or occupancy.
Project Team and Jury
Year of substantial project completion: 2023
Gross conditioned floor area: 500 sq. ft.
Architecture Firm: After Architecture
Research & Development: Before Building Laboratory
Project Leads: Katie MacDonald, Kyle Schumann
Project Team: Shiza Chaudhary, Ammon Embleton, Isaac Goodin, Emily Ploppert, Margaret Saunders
Material Donation: University of Virginia Sawmilling, Irwin Block, First Christian Church
Supported by: Exhibit Columbus University Design Research Fellowship, Jefferson Trust Annual Cycle Grant, University of Virginia School of Architecture Summer Research Grant, University of Virgnia Vice Provost for the Arts Grant
Andre Johnson, AIA, Chair, AJA, Raleigh, N.C.
Mindy Aust, AIA, MA Architecture, Des Moines, Iowa
Joy Cunningham, Assoc. AIA, MG2, McLean, Va.
Lisa Sauve, AIA, Synecdoche, Ann Arbor, Mich.
Matt Seltzer, AIA, archimania, Memphis, Tenn.
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