Strong? Check. Sustainable? Check. Stylish? Check. You’d be forgiven if you thought I was talking about a fancy, high tech, new material. But I am in fact talking about one of the oldest materials around, timber. It has built our environment for thousands of years, and we have spent all of human existence honing the craft and finding new uses for it. But it seems that it is not going out of date yet.
The future of timber is skyscrapers, claims architect Michael Green, who’s practice proposed a 35-storey tower which would be located in Paris. With developments in glue and cross laminated timber, and different ways of joining with steel and traditional joinery, this is looking like it could be increasingly be the norm in a world of diminishing resources. It seems like an old material is “the first new way to build a skyscraper in over 100 years”. But a downfall to this beautiful and dynamic material is the unknown future of how it will fair over time unlike steel or concrete structures which largely remain the same as time passes.
Another way in which timber is making a comeback is its rediscovery in flat pack furniture and homes. In a trend driven society where there is now pressure to keep up, people are always keen to get well designed pieces at a bargain prices. This is prevalent in companies such as Ikea, where the company aims to take Swedish design trends and repackage them into veneered, chipboard and CNC routed, cookie cutter pieces which the consumer may buy in to in an attempt to achieve the “wonderful everyday”.
Despite the advances in technology and wide availability of mass produced timber products to the public, I must ask, have people lost interest in craftsmanship and joinery as a skill? And is it now seen as a means to an end in, creating throw away products? In world where not just products, but full buildings can be made by robots do we still care about artisan timber products?
To this I answer yes, we care more now than ever before. Not only are we more aware of our environmental footprint, but we all crave something special and unique, which is hard to find in our world. The make do and mend attitude of our grandparents’ generation is back with vengeance as people are now getting inspired and stuck in to re-purposing timber thanks to a heightened awareness of where our waste goes, as well as encouragements through apps like ‘Pinterest’ and the media. People are also keener to shop local rather than faceless corporations, knowing they can contact the artisan for information about how their piece came to fruition, knowing it is unique and one of a kind. This also means that craftsmen also care more about the quality of their product as they do not have large franchise to hide behind in the case of a customer complaint. The customer gets a greater sense of control of their timber product and the sense that their bespoke piece is not in fact throw away timber.