Justin Den Herder
2023 Silman Award
2x
This application seeks to expand our definition of preservation to address the preservation of wood as a building material. Wood is a carbon storage device. Whether trees in a forest or a wood framed stud wall within a residence, wood is crucial as carbon repository or carbon sink. If wood is permitted to decompose, the stored carbon within it is once again released into the atmosphere as a greenhouse gas.
The longer we can perpetuate the service life of wood within the built environment, the fewer trees we need to fell, the more carbon we are able to store, and the more time we grant ourselves to grow healthy, mature forests.
This project envisions a process whereby light framed wood construction can be salvaged and reused within new structures, thereby extending the service life of the wood, preventing it from decomposing, thus better honoring the life of the felled tree that became a stud or a joist.
This project seeks to redistribute light framed wood construction from existing homes slated to be demolished and otherwise rot in landfills, for the creation of new temporary or permanent housing units and structures to create shelter or housing for those in need. The wood will be carefully ’harvested from the existing structures in 4-6ft length, inventoried, stored, and designed to be part of robotically fabricated, pre-assembled wood trusses that will be used to create new housing structures. Once these houses have fulfilled their service life the trusses can be deconstructed, stored and once again re-purposed in a future use.
Image: Timberlyn, a structure assembled by robotic arms from 19 prefabricated modules made with reused timber, as part of the Bethel Woods Art and Architecture Festival 2024