Join Carson Chan and Lindsey Wikstrom for the culmination of the Material Worlds lecture series.
The inaugural episode of Materials Worlds was focused on Mass Timber, and brought together the President of the Forest Stewardship Council, an equity and sustainability-focused real estate developer, a professor of wood mechanics and timber engineering, and an architect—all specializing in the material. The episode launched a two year long conversation about materials in the built environment that covered not only timber, concrete, and stone, but also silica, waste, and water among others. It has been an effort to not only to envision the future, but also to better understand the past and present of humanity’s impact on the nonhuman world, all in the hope of engaging the newest generation of architects to reassess the discipline in the face of urgent change.
The starting point for Material Worlds was Wikstrom’s book: Designing the Forest and Other Mass Timber Futures (Routledge, 2023), which was in progress when the series launched. Now that it’s available in print, we will take the opportunity to explore the critical questions it raises, looking at how the conversation evolved and became foundational to the direction of the Ambasz Institute and the discourse of environmental design.
This event was made possible through a generous gift from Emilio Ambasz. The Emilio Ambasz Institute for the Joint Study of the Built and the Natural Environment is a platform for fostering dialogue, promoting conversation, and facilitating research about the relationship between the built and natural environment, with the aim of making the interaction between architecture and ecology visible and accessible to the wider public while highlighting the urgent need for an ecological recalibration.
Organized by:
Center for Architecture; Emilio Ambasz Institute
