Designing the Forest
Designing the Forest and Other Mass Timber Futures
If we want to continue existing on this earth, an era of renewable energy and materials is urgently needed. What role could mass timber, with its potential to replace concrete and steel, have in ensuring the planet’s survival?
This book retraces wood’s passage from stewarded seed in the soil of forests, to harvested biomass, to laminated walls in a living room, through to its disassembly, pausing at each step in the supply chain of mass timber to consider the labor and economies involved, looking closely at the way wood is grown, sourced, and transported, and its impacts on the biodiversity of the forest and the health of our ecosystems. It explores why historically entrenched contexts of extractivism make such sensitive approaches difficult to cultivate across landscapes and industrial frameworks. Along the way, common assumptions about mass timber are debunked, including its fire performance, its strength, and its role in carbon sequestration. Having identified contemporary technical, cultural, and spiritual gaps preventing the transition towards a fully timber built environment, it outlines how we might move forward. A more sensitive species-based methodology is essential, with designers as choreographers of carbon, transferring and trading between forest, factory, site, and beyond.

Writing and illutrations by Lindsey Wikstrom
Copyediting by Madeleine Campagnon
Graphic Design by Studio Elana Schlenker
Foreword by Kenneth Frampton
Pre-order available now,
Shipping begins March 1
Copyediting by Madeleine Campagnon
Graphic Design by Studio Elana Schlenker
Foreword by Kenneth Frampton
Pre-order available now,
Shipping begins March 1


Index
All Weather Garden
Bar Cicchetti
Bedford House
Constellation Collective
Engine Factory
Hive Installation
Immersive Housing Catalog
Megaflora Housing
Mission Rock
Natural Number Houses
Nine Reciprocities
One Delisle
Pleat Project
Second Street Housing
Seongbuk Residences
Solar Carve
Three Material Stories
West Village Loft
WBYA Exhibition
institutional
commercial, interior, mass timber
residential, single-family, interior
residential, multi-family, competition
mass timber, industrial
institutional, installation
residential, research, publication
residential, multi-family, mass timber, competition
residential, multi-family, mixed-use
residential, research, mass timber
residential, multi-family, research, publication
residential, multi-family, mixed-use, interior
commercial
residential, multi-family
residential, multi-family
commercial, interior
research, publication
residential, interior
interior, exhibition
All Weather Garden
Bar Cicchetti
Bedford House
Constellation Collective
Engine Factory
Hive Installation
Immersive Housing Catalog
Megaflora Housing
Mission Rock
Natural Number Houses
Nine Reciprocities
One Delisle
Pleat Project
Second Street Housing
Seongbuk Residences
Solar Carve
Three Material Stories
West Village Loft
WBYA Exhibition
Bar Cicchetti
Bedford House
Constellation Collective
Engine Factory
Hive Installation
Immersive Housing Catalog
Megaflora Housing
Mission Rock
Natural Number Houses
Nine Reciprocities
One Delisle
Pleat Project
Second Street Housing
Seongbuk Residences
Solar Carve
Three Material Stories
West Village Loft
WBYA Exhibition