Slowing Down Wood Cascading

Clara Schwarz, MArch (Year: 5)

Following climate-smart forestry plan of the 2015 Paris Climate Agreement, there is a dynamic favorable to wood.Climate scientists are urging governments to re-establish natural forests and letting these grow much bigger and older as this is one of the best solutions to climate crisis. As architects, we shouldn’t increase further the demand for mass timber – a product based on small diameter plantation trees – but instead reduce logging pressures and support sustainable forests. When using wood, choose FSC-certified products - large-diameter trees coming from sustainable forests - and salvaged wood, to extend the carbon benefit of using wood products. Millions of tons of salvaged wood per year is not being used due to its small size and odd shape. Optimizing the salvaged wood market can initiate a sustainable balance between wood demand and supply. My project offers an alternative to mass timber by using salvaged wood offcuts that are considered as waste. These wood offcuts will be turned into architectural products with different applications at different scales. These products will be integrated panels allowing both wood performances and cost efficiency of an industrial process.