When we say that one of our core tenets is the Beauties of Wood, the plural is intentional.
There is so much to love about wood as a building material.
The flowing grains, graceful curves, and dynamic range of adaptable colors that make wood visually stunning, but there is far more to wood than meets the eye.
Let us tell you a little more about how wood works, and what makes it so special to us.
Living trees sequester carbon within their fibers; acting like a filter for the air we breathe.
Trees take in CO2 through the processes of photosynthesis and store that carbon in their fibers, which is commonly known as carbon sequestration. That carbon will stay locked away within the wood fibers when it is used for building homes, structures, or furniture. Because of this, wood is one of the few building materials that remain carbon negative throughout its lifecycle, adding no additional carbon to the atmosphere through its long-term use.
Living trees not only clean the air we breathe, they also clean and stabilize the soil.
Beneath the forest floor there is an incredible interconnected network of tree roots. These root systems serve a variety of different purposes from being the conduit with which trees deposit carbon into the soil as nutrients for plant life, to hosting crucial fungi that break carbon down into additional nutrients, to acting as a fibrous web that holds both trees and soil in place, preventing run-off and mudslides, roots are the fabric that bind a forests ecosystem together.
All of this makes sustainable forestry incredibly important to us. Working with accredited certifying bodies like the Forest Stewardship Council© (FSC) and Programme for the Endorsement of Forest Certification© (PEFC), as well as family-run farms, we use sustainably harvest wood as often as possible.
Have you ever been stuck in a drab conference room with no windows and harsh artificial lighting for an all-day meeting only to leave feeling drained, wanting nothing more than a moment outside and some fresh air?
Many architects, ourselves included, have studied this phenomenon and found a solution by incorporating Biophilic design elements into our projects. Biophilia is the theory that humans are innately connected to nature, and that spending time surrounded by nature, or natural materials like wood, affects our mood in a positive way.
In The 1600’s 2/3rds of the United States was covered with dense old growth forests. From these forests, eastern hardwoods & softwoods supported the building of much of the North and Southeast US, both economically and physically.
In time this spread through the upper-Midwest American Chestnut groves and then to the Pacific Northwest’s giant Douglas fir and Cedar reserves. Along the way our economy and population also grew, and with it so did lumber mills, woodworking shops, and log & timber frame construction.
Today our forests might look different than they did in 1600, but the United States still possesses the natural resources to sustainably build homes primarily with wood, unlike many other areas of the world. Our modern-day forest industry supports healthy domestic & Canadian woodlands, lumber & timber manufacturing, and helps to preserve traditional woodcraft and building methods.
When properly maintained, wood-based structures can last for generations. Buildings that are efficient to run and have a healthy interior are buildings that can be handed-down instead of being demolished. When a building has reached the end of its lifespan we can reclaim and reuse wood, creating new products that keep the carbon locked away. The pieces we cannot reclaim can be disposed through proper biodegrading or turned to energy as a non-fossil fuel source.
From the air we breathe, to the interconnected complexities of forest ecosystems, to the shelter it provides through human ingenuity, craft, and tradition.
Wood has helped us build our past, and now promises to help build our future through sustainable designs that responsibly utilize this renewable natural resource.
