Resources / Notes from working with trees

Thoughts and observations gathered from my notebooks, exhibition walls and conversations with students and collaborators. They come from the forest, the workshop and the work between them—ideas to return to as the work develops.

1. 01

   Use just enough technology to get the job done.

2. 02

   Keep the process from becoming the thing.

3. 03

   Begin with what's around, in the state it's in.

4. 04

   Let the material change the design.

5. 05

   Accept some limits from the wood.

6. 06

   Work from ground to crown. Find high-value purposes for as much of a tree as possible.

7. 07

   Wood comes from the forest, not Home Depot.

8. 08

   You can read a lot into the grain of a single piece of wood.

9. 09

   My real interest is in novel combinations of new and old processes. No one tool or construction method is the answer. Combine well.

10. 10

    Make a model only as detailed as the work requires.

11. 11

    Return to the actual piece when the model leaves something out.

12. 12

    Expect wood to move, and make room for it.

13. 13

    Ask how much processing a piece really needs.

14. 14

    Use more wet wood closer to where it's from. Consider processing materials on site, or near the place they will be used.

15. 15

    Bring foresters, makers, and engineers into the design early.

16. 16

    Make the construction legible, so a building can teach something about how it was made.

17. 17

    Develop methods that other people can use.

18. 18

    Living in and around your designs helps. Return to completed work and see what it can teach.

19. 19

    We have become entirely used to specifying generic materials and preset assemblies. My work engages particular ones.

20. 20

    When we build with only a few materials—a handful of tree species, for example—we encourage a dumbing down of the natural world through our methods of extraction.

21. 21

    There are some objects we should be done with designing and making by now. Prioritise reuse of existing stock.

22. 22

    A wood building is not necessarily a good building. Some forests are carbon emitters.

23. 23

    Mass timber is a bad word. Why not do more with less?

24. 24

    Wooden moment connections are hard work.

25. 25

    The ginkgo is an incredibly interesting tree.

26. 26

    The goal is not to digitally automate wood construction from photosynthesis to finished form.

27. 27

    Separating building and design activities results in bad buildings.

28. 28

    Copying can be a good thing if you take ideas further. We all stand on others' shoulders.

29. 29

    Beyond making manufacturing processes faster, digital technologies can enhance our knowledge of trees and help us develop more ecological ways of working with them.

30. 30

    Maximising carbon sequestered in buildings alone neglects the fact that trees achieve this while alive.

31. 31

    Trees are the largest living beings on Earth.

32. 32

    A building future at ease with the environment will be made diversely.

33. 33

    Digital tools to harness, not create complexity.

34. 34

    Wood is so much more capable than we give it credit for.

35. 35

    Each project should be considered from the pragmatic to the fantastical.

36. 36

    All design should be considered from cellular to planetary scales. This is not a new point, but it remains uncommon.

37. 37

    We need to challenge the primary systems that lead to so much bad building.

38. 38

    We ignore the real impacts of building when existing manufacturing processes are taken for granted.

39. 39

    Make Architecture Building Again.

40. 40

    We need to consider how materials are made, where, what forms they prefer and how they might be used again.

41. 41

    The more we can do with less of anything, the better.

42. 42

    Architecture schools don't need to produce architects.