Wool Wall
Soufyane El Koraichi
Marlon Bagnou Beido & Soufyane El Koraichi graduated both from Industrial design school ENSCI - Les Ateliers, in 2021. Their graduation projects were respectively focused on thermic strategies in the field of insulation with bio-sourced materials and low-consuming heating & cooling system. In 2021 they were granted by Faire Paris, a public funding delivered by the Pavillon de l'Arsenal, to pursue their research. Since then the duo framed the research around the use of wool in the field of architecture and thermic strategies following the different steps of transformation of the material.
Together they share a workshop in La Courneuve in the suburbs of Paris.
In France, the production of heat represents two-thirds of the average domestic consumption of a building. These buildings, which are now subject to new standards, allow the emergence of new architectural features (interior insulation, exterior insulation, winter gardens, thermal curtains, etc.), enabling a reduction in their energy consumption. These changes in construction methods represent an opportunity for the use of bio-sourced materials, such as sheep's wool. Its insulating qualities make it one of the best performing materials from a thermal, hygroscopic and acoustic point of view.
From raw material to yarn, the relatively long transformation cycle makes wool an expensive product. The qualities and diversity of French wool mean that it cannot compete in a globalized market. As a co-product of the sheep industry, sheep's wool in France is now reduced to a waste product, and most of it ends up being destroyed for lack of infrastructure to recycle it. Faced with these losses, the construction industry represents an interesting outlet, as this sector makes it possible to use wool in minimally processed forms.
To this end, we propose to observe the material's transformation cycle and to intervene at three points. These interventions will give rise to three prototypes:
1- An external insulation system that takes advantage of the storage of raw wool at the time of shearing.
2- A manufacturing process for a semi-rigid, easily reversible interior insulation panel that takes advantage of the flexibility of carded wool to create a new materiality for the wall
3- A non-woven radiant heating surface for shared spaces, offering energy-efficient heating by heating bodies rather than spaces.
These proposals are potential openings for contemporary uses of wool, bypassing the problems of the lack of infrastructure needed to consolidate the wool industry in France.