Document #001  text


studiotmmr

fabrication, teaching, research


Timmer—a word meaning timber—anchors the studio in material craft and the long lineage of making. TMMR distills that word to its essentials, mirroring a practice that pares material down to its core and reshapes it into contemporary design. This compression from timmer to TMMR reflects the way the studio moves between raw matter, fabrication, and conceptual clarity.

My work builds on open thermodynamics, design thinking, and fabrication to examine how flows of matter and energy shape architectural form and practice. As embodied energy and carbon become central to architectural discourse, this inquiry grows increasingly urgent. Through installations, experimental projects, design research, and teaching, I develop methodologies—and mentor students—to engage critically with the material and energetic forces that constitute architecture. These intensive and extensive properties ground my work, and I translate open‑systems thinking across research, teaching, and service. In doing so, I resist deterministic environmental responses and instead advance nuanced, contingent methodologies, mappings, prototypes, and typological explorations suited to today’s environmental complexities.

To engage matter and energy more directly, I rely on digital fabrication and full‑scale making as primary modes of investigation. Iterative physical experiments and courses centered on hands‑on modeling allow my students and me to work with complex flows of material and energy through direct making. This systems‑based approach supports recursive, process‑driven design methods that privilege flow over fixed outcomes. By situating design at the level of systems rather than objects, my research and pedagogy aim to better prepare students and practitioners to confront the intertwined challenges of architecture and the environment.

Although my work is formally organized into research, teaching, and service, the themes of systems thinking, energy, and matter move fluidly across all three. This shared methodological foundation has allowed my research to expand beyond energy into community‑based design and modular furniture. That broadening reinforces the value of open thermodynamic systems, systemic design thinking, and fabrication as powerful frameworks for addressing contemporary architectural problems.

- alxtmmr





studiotmmr

1/15/25

Document #020
project


faculty mailboxes

Design, Fabrication, Installation -
Alex Timmer, Fritz Eckstrom
Photography: Connor Ever
Milwaukee, WI
2022


The timber removed from our urban forests is an underutilized and sustainable source of lumber. While the goal of urban forestry is the maintenance of our city’s forests, occasionally, communities must remove trees. The utilization of trees when they need to be removed because of rot, natural disaster, safety, development, or death offers an opportunity to think more systematically about timber utilization. This source of material allows architects to feed resources directly back into the communities in which they are extracted. Rather than this material going to waste or burned for fuel, it is turned into urban ash plywood that is used for the renovated faculty mailboxes at the in the School of Architecture and Urban Planning.






studiotmmr

2022
Document #021
teaching


wall mock ups

Alex Timmer
Various Students
Milwaukee, WI
2024




Across the various classes I teach, I’ve found that working with students through full‑scale mockups is one of the most effective ways to introduce construction concepts. These immersive, hands‑on projects allow students to grapple with real materials, real dimensions, and real constraints—experiences that simply can’t be replicated through drawings or digital models alone. Many of these mockups are made possible through partnerships with manufacturers or through grant‑funded initiatives, which not only provide material support but also connect students to current industry practices and technologies.

This approach fosters a form of embodied learning, where students internalize construction principles by physically engaging with them. The resulting artifacts—whether wall sections, assemblies, or full spatial prototypes—become valuable teaching tools in their own right. We display them, revisit them in later lessons, and use them as reference points for discussions about detailing, sequencing, sustainability, and craft. In this way, each mockup serves both as a learning experience and as a lasting pedagogical asset that enriches the curriculum over time.





studiotmmr

2022
Document #019 project


acoustic desk

Alex Timmer, Tan Doruk Saral
Milwaukee, WI
Summer 2023



This acoustic desk, designed for a classroom in Milwaukee, serves as both a functional workstation and a sculptural focal point for the room. Its defining feature is an articulated plywood surface composed of horizontally layered laminations, each layer stepping and shifting to create a textured, topographic form. Behind this layered façade, the structure is backed with homasote, adding acoustic absorption while providing a stable substrate for the complex geometry.

The desk is engineered to discreetly manage the cords, equipment, and miscellaneous hardware required for classroom presentations. By tucking these elements behind the stepped plywood surface, the design maintains a clean visual profile while still offering a fully equipped podium for instructors. The plywood is finished with tung oil to bring out its natural warmth and grain, while the backing material is painted black so it visually recedes into the shadows created by the overlapping layers.

Additional storage is integrated into the body of the desk, supporting everyday classroom needs without disrupting the overall form. The TV, positioned behind the desk, can be rolled out or removed entirely without shifting the desk itself—an intentional detail that keeps the teaching space flexible and easy to reconfigure





studiotmmr

2023
Document #018



adjustable desk

Alex Timmer
Milwaukee, WI
2022


This adjustable desk, inspired by the shifting geometries of an Erwin Hauer screen, transforms its visual composition as the user changes its height. Rather than treating adjustability as a purely functional feature, the design embraces motion as an aesthetic and spatial experience. As the desk rises or lowers, the layered elements slide past one another, revealing new alignments, overlaps, and shadow patterns. Throughout the day, the desk becomes a quietly dynamic object—its appearance never fixed, always responding to the user’s posture, task, and movement.

The desk is constructed from Baltic Birch plywood, chosen for its structural stability, fine grain, and ability to hold crisp, clean edges. The layered construction echoes the perforated continuity of Hauer’s sculptural screens, translating their fluid, interlocking logic into a functional piece of furniture. When the desk shifts height, these layers visually recombine, creating a series of evolving compositions that animate the workspace.










studiotmmr

2022
Document #017



reclaimed plywood acoustic panels v1

Alex Timmer, Tan Doruk Saral
Milwaukee, WI
Fall 2023



The first series of acoustic panels was conceived as an experiment in circular design, using waste wood salvaged from a set of demolished office desks as the primary material. The Baltic Birch plywood—already pre‑finished from its previous life—introduced both opportunities and constraints. Its existing surface treatment meant that every panel had to be carefully mapped and selectively cut from irregular desk remnants, requiring a puzzle‑like approach to maximize usable yield and minimize additional waste.

Once cut, each panel was backed with a layer of black felt to enhance acoustic absorption and provide a clean visual contrast. To create a subtle sense of depth and separation from the wall, the panels were mounted using custom 3D‑printed standoffs. These standoffs not only lifted the panels off the surface but also allowed for precise alignment and repeatable spacing across the installation.

The visual language of the panels centered on a grid of conical forms that established the primary geometric pattern. This grid was then intersected by an undulating surface that swept across the cones, trimming their peaks and introducing a secondary, wave‑like rhythm that connected the panels into a cohesive field. The interplay between the rigid grid and the flowing contour created a dynamic texture that shifted with lighting and viewing angle.

After fabrication, each panel was hand‑finished with tung oil to enrich the natural warmth of the birch and highlight the subtle grain variations inherited from the original desks. A final coat of oil‑based polyurethane sealed the surface, adding durability and a soft sheen that unified the reclaimed material into a refined architectural element






studiotmmr

2023
Document #015



plywood napkins
revisiting the fold through recursion

Alex Timmer
Irving Innovation Fellowship Material Research
Cambridge, MA
Fall 2016





Plywood Napkins explores the possibility of formulating a methodology for design through the deployment of a simple, repeated cutting operation. Each piece is cut, the cutoffs are then flipped and glued back together. The object then settles per its natural tendency and the process is repeated. As the surface is edited, it no longer rests flat on the table. A nominal 20-degree cut, set by a fixed saw, varies relative to the surface’s global and local permutations at any one time.

The resulting surfaces exhibit both negative and positive feedback, as the subsequent cuts cause the surface to fold in onto itself. While its footprint shrinks, its mass is conserved. At the same time, each cut and flip causes misalignments, which grow with each higher-order cut. The designer engages continuously in a dialogue between continuity and error, local expression and global form, and design intent and material intelligence.



Operation:
Select a flat stock of a desired size.
Set the band saw to 20 degrees.
Divide the stock into an odd number of pieces using the fixed saw. 1
Flip every other piece and glue them all back together. 2
Make sure to match as many surfaces and seams as possible. 3
Rotate the piece and let it settle flat. 4
Divide the surface into an odd number of pieces using the fixed saw. 1
Flip every other piece and glue them all back together. 2
Make sure to match as many surfaces and seams as possible. 3
Rotate the piece and let it settle flat. 4
Divide the surface into an odd number of pieces using the fixed saw. 1
Flip every other piece...







studiotmmr

2017
Document #013



cordwood redux sculpture

Alex Timmer
Felipe Paez
Sculpture Milwaukee Installation for the Sculpture Milwaukee side show “Hello Nature”, Spring 2023





Redux refers to the bringing back or restoration of an object of study. In cordwood redux, a version of the traditional cordwood construction or firewood stacking is reconstituted through composite Portland cement and waste wood logs. The stack is organized by each log’s environmental impact, with the wood waste constituting a sequestering of carbon and the cement constituting an expenditure of carbon. The variable mixtures result in a gradation of color, tone, texture and compressive strength as a result of the cement content. Reminiscent of firewood stacking techniques, traditional cord wood construction consists of short logs stacked and connected with mortar. The resourceful inventiveness of early practitioners was the result of a creative reuse of available material. Cordwood redux doubles down the the creative reuse of material to reconstituted the cordwood wall.

Installed in the 3rd street market mezzanine space and main pedestrian thoroughfare, cordwood redux is part of a larger exhibition entitled hello nature. The work will remain on show for the summer. When it is removed the cylinders will be further tested.

The cylinders are stacked in a repeating pattern dictated by the compressive strength of each of the cylinders. This early understanding of the compressive strength will be further evaluated after the sculpture is taken down.








studiotmmr

2023
Document #000 


index

fabrication, teaching, research
// Projects Document #020 - faculty mailboxes
Document #019 - adjustable desk
Document #018 - acoustic desk
Document #017 - reclaimed plywood acoustic panels v1
Document #016 - conductive handrail
Document #015 - plywood napkins
Document #013 - cordwood redux sculpture
Document #011 - pervious concrete grotto
Document #010 - solar foley
Document #009 - solar totems

// Projects at Other Firms
Document #005 - outside in house
Document #004 - liberty loft
Document #003 - shadow pavilion

// Text Document #001 - studiotmmr
// Research Document #002 - cordwood redux
//Exhibits
Document #014 - the thinking hand exhibit
Document #012 - mellowes research fellowship exhibit
Document #008 - formation: exhibition and workshop
Document #007 - operative artifacts
Document #006 - rules of possibility: constructing design systems

// TeachingDocument #021 - wall mock ups




studiotmmr

1/17/25