Designing the Forest and Other Mass Timber Futures

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.