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Material Value(s): Motivating the architectural application of waste wood

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Abstract

At present, wood is in focus, with many sectors striving to capitalise on its renewability for reducing environmental impacts. Whilst wood offers incredible capabilities, attitudes are conflicted over how best we should manage our expectations of forests, and subsequently, how to value wood. The paper highlights current research into the barriers for a more circular practice of wood, notably defects, that inhibit the reuse of wood in its solid form. The theoretical context for the paper, material agency, provides a framework for discussing the development of closer connections between the heterogeneous material traits found in waste wood, and architecture. This theoretical approach, alongside the motivations from current research form the basis of two 1:1 practice-based waste wood prototypes, that depart from the function of a glulam beam, and a CLT (Cross Laminated Timber) wall. As architectural elements, they aim to integrate inherited material traits, recognising waste wood’s agency in the dialogue between designer and material. The prototypes demonstrate a potential for waste wood to replace virgin material in typical structural functions, as well as offering new aesthetics, that maintain the waste stream’s identity. In conclusion, the paper highlights avenues for further research to enable integrating wood’s agency in sustainable approaches to timber construction.

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Funding

The research leading to these results received funding from Innovation Fund Denmark, Realdania, and Lendager as part of an industrial PhD project by the first author under Grant Agreement No. 0153-00111B. The third and fourth authors are both employed at Lendager.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Royal Danish Academy Architecture Design Conservation, Copenhagen, Denmark

    Xan Browne & Olga Popovic Larsen

  2. Lendager, Copenhagen, Denmark

    Nikolaj Callisen Friis & Magnus Sølvhøj Kühn

Authors
  1. Xan Browne
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  2. Olga Popovic Larsen
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  3. Nikolaj Callisen Friis
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  4. Magnus Sølvhøj Kühn
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Correspondence to Xan Browne.

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Browne, X., Larsen, O.P., Friis, N.C. et al. Material Value(s): Motivating the architectural application of waste wood. Archit. Struct. Constr. 2, 575–584 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s44150-022-00065-6

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s44150-022-00065-6

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