Project by Joshua Allen
Using thinned wood, a byproduct of the lumber industry, we construct modular, adaptable structures. Our case study is in the Tongass National Forest, a remote preserve in southeastern Alaska consisting of nearly 17 million acres of temperate rainforest. Standard forestry practices call for strategic thinning of young trees while remaining trees grow to economically-viable size, which are harvested and sawn into dimensional lumber. Thinned wood, culled before reaching economical sizes, is generally pulped, chipped, or burned. This system taps a waste stream to construct an adaptable structure with resources at hand, expanding, modifying, and deconstructing as needs and resources evolve.
