 | Designing the Forest and other Mass Timber Futures Subjects: Built Environment; Environment and Sustainability; Landscape; Environment & Philosophy; Architecture; Building and Construction; Architectural Design Drawing and Presentation; Professional Practice; Structure Materials and Detailing; Sustainable Architecture; Construction Management; Green Construction; This book positions the supply chain of mass timber as a design project, critiquing sourcing today and proposing a species-based methodology. It first interrogates why these relationships are difficult to cultivate across landscapes and industrial frameworks, and then identifies gaps that are preventing the transition towards a fully mass timber built environment. An era of renewable energy and renewable materials are slowly being phased into our built environment, but why is it taking so long to adopt? Using the tools of architecture as the site of inception, this series of essays and drawings positions designers as choreographers of carbon, transferring and trading between forest, factory, site and beyond. With a focus on species-driven decision making across all scales, the book recalibrates a designer's sensibility beyond singular buildings-as-objects towards a material flow, prompting future interpretations of the forest that have the potential to change the way the built environment is conceived. It will be an important read for any architect, urban designer or landscape architect working with timber, as well as students of architecture and design interested in the generative nature of materials. Lindsey Wikstrom is the Founding Principal of Mattaforma and an Adjunct Professor at Columbia University Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation. She holds an M.Arch from Columbia University, where she was awarded the Charles McKim Prize, Visualization Award and Avery 6 Award. Lindsey is also the recipient of the SOM Prize. Her research focuses on the history of environmentalism and the trajectory of mass timber. This is her first book. |
