There are many references on the subject of building with wood. We have chosen to highlight these professionals for their innovative ideas.
Joseph Mayo, Assoc. AIA, LEED AP
Solid Wood by Joseph Mayo provides the first detailed book which allows readers to understand new mass timber/massive wood architecture.
Over the past 10-15 years a renaissance in wood architecture has occurred with the development of new wood building systems and design strategies, elevating wood from a predominantly single-family residential idiom to a rival of concrete and steel construction for a variety of building types, including high rises. This new solid wood architecture offers unparalleled environmental as well as construction and aesthetic benefits, and is of growing importance for professionals and academics involved in green design.
Case studies in this book include the most ambitious academic, hospitality, industrial, multi-family, and wood office buildings in the world.
With discussions from leading architectural, engineering, and material manufacturing firms in Europe, North America and the South Pacific, Solid Wood disrupts preconceived notions and serves as an indispensable guide to twenty-first century wood architecture and its environmental and cultural benefits.
Michael Green, Architect
Michael Green, a TED (Technology, Entertainment, Design) Talent Search winner teaches and mentors at the University of British Columbia’s School of Architecture and Landscape Architecture (SALA).
Green is calling for rapid systemic change in the way we build. To end the global housing and climate crises, he says we need to get past innovation-stifling regulations and well-meaning but misguided ideas popularized by mainstream media. His proposal: Forget steel, straw, concrete, shipping containers, and rammed earth. Use wood to erect urban skyscrapers. Why are buildings made of wood only a few stories high when trees found in nature are remarkable for their height?
Green says: To build a 20-story building out of cement and concrete, 1,200 tons of carbon dioxide gets released; to construct the same building from wood, 3,100 tons are saved, a difference of about 900 cars taken off the road in a year. As Green notes, 3% of world’s energy goes into the making of steel and 5% goes into the making of concrete. check domain . While most people think of transportation as the main villain when it comes to CO2 emissions, building is actually the true top offender — accounting for 47% of CO2 emissions. Green builds with wood because not only is it unique and beautiful — it reduces CO2 emissions.
Michael Green has shared his deep love of wood — which he first discovered from his grandfather, a woodworker who taught him to “honor a tree’s life by making it as beautiful as you possibly can.” Now, Green designs buildings made of wood and he notices that people have an unusual relationship to wooden walls, columns and ceilings. “They hug it. They touch it,” he says. “Just like snowflakes, no two pieces of wood can be the same anywhere on earth.”
“We have an ethic that the earth grows our food,” says Green. “We should move toward an ethic that the earth should grow our homes.”
As for fires, Green points out that mass timber panels are extremely dense and, thus, don’t catch fire easily — it’s the same principle that makes a log hard to burn. And when a fire does catch, it moves slowly and behaves predictably, allowing for uniform fire safety measures to be put in place.
Green introduces us to sustainable forestry also. He shares that enough wood is grown in North America every 13 minutes for a 20 story building.
A must see video with on building with wood is at: http://www.ted.com/talks/michael_green_why_we_should_build_wooden_skyscrapers
Danish Wood Initiative
Another entertaining video about wood on YouTube is at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_fWG7ftl3gI
Enjoy!
Parts of this article are taken from the details listed for Joseph Mayo’s book when purchasing it, and from information on the TED.com website on Michael Green, architect.