It’s easy to imagine CLT becoming the next luxury building trend to invade the skylines of rapidly gentrifying cities, giving an eco-friendly excuse for remaking the city in service of maximized profit. [...]
In order for mass timber to truly engage with the regenerative power of forests to help alleviate our current climate predicament, it must be linked to a greater movement towards ecological reformation at all scales.
— Failed Architecture
In his latest piece for Failed Architecture, writer and architect Alexander Hadley takes a critical look at the future economical and environmental impact of the accelerating cross-laminated timber boom.
"Building from regenerative materials like trees instead of intensively extracted substances like concrete and steel is certainly part of a climate strategy," Hadley argues, "but only if it resists being absorbed into an agenda of profit-driven production with no long term-ecological considerations."
8 Comments
According to Bill Gates' linkedin video, we need 16 billion trees, as of this year. The real use of this earth should investigate low CO2 producing cement mixtures to utilize dirt better. It is a little sickening to see that the CLT panels aren't strategically placed, but rather, full enclosures of lower than Class A material. High end Architecture is Type I Class A Non Combustible, with possibly Carnegie fabrics to compliment.
The fact that you equate Code defined Type I and Class A construction with quality suggests you lack the experience necessary to be making the kind of sweeping generalities that you seem to enjoy.
lol, where did the shout out to Carnegie fabrics come from? Did they pay you for this post?
the real use of this earth is to utilise dirt? sold(!)
While most of what was stated above is nonsense... there is actually an issue with mass timber that the volume required to replace concrete would not be able to be sustainably grown by a long shot. A hard swap is not the answer. Of that SBT is tangentially correct...
before swapping first question if the volume intended is actually the volume required
Over on Twitter, Billy Fleming (Wilks Family Director of the Ian L. McHarg Center) provided some more details and suggested further reading(s)...
"Most of the LCA work to date is theoretical, not empirical, and driven in large part by the timber industry. Much as we’re seeing audits of offset forests show dramatic under-performance re: carbon sequestration, we’re also starting to see CLT fail to deliver on its promises."
I’m hopeful about mass timber, but think the real breakthrough will come with the genetic modification of trees using crispr. Imagine of we could tinker with the genes to promote faster growth, density, fire resistance (like some species have), etc..,.that will be wild
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