Put These Timber Architecture Books on Your Shelf - Metropolis

July 17, 2024

Four recent titles highlight the past and future of timber, from forest to building products.

By: Jaxson Stone

By Jennifer Bonner (Editor), Hanif Kara (Editor) Applied Research & Design (January 2022), 240 pp., $49.95

Jennifer Bonner and Hanif Kara’s Blank: Speculations on CLT explores the cultural, spatial, and technological significance and potential of cross-laminated timber (CLT) and its material unit, the CLT blank. The volume offers up a “close reading” of CLT and is positioned as an antidote to current conversations, “which are fixated on its mass production and carbon footprint, portraying it as a bland product rather than an enabler of design.” The book features contributions by editors Nelson Byun, Victoria Camblin, Sean Canty, Courtney Coffman, Sam Jacob, Christopher C. M. Lee, Erin Putalik, Nader Tehrani, and Yasmin Vobis, in addition to a series of student work from a joint design studio at the Harvard GSD.

By Lindsey Wikstrom, Routledge (March 2023), 246 pp., $39.95

In this book, architect and Columbia GSAPP professor Lindsey Wikstrom poses the question, What role could mass timber, with its potential to replace concrete and steel, have in ensuring the planet’s survival? Tracing wood’s passage from forest to construction site, the book navigates readers through various aspects of mass timber, from its harvesting to its production, transportation, and disassembly. Along the way, Wikstrom debunks common mass timber myths from carbon sequestration to fire safety. The book serves as a comprehensive, non-extractive guide for architects and engineers who are interested in designing and saving the planet with wood.

By Boyce Thompson, Schiffer (May 2024), 224 pp., $45

From the world’s tallest mass timber building in Milwaukee to a fairy-tale experience at the Hans Christian Andersen Museum in Denmark, Innovations in Mass Timber focuses on 16 global projects that represent innovation and style through sustainable mass timber design in the commercial sector. From carbon sequestration to moisture control, acoustics to millwork, Thompson’s book conveys the environmental benefits of mass timber through a rich array of photography, technical diagrams, and prose.

By Carla Ferrer (Editor), Thomas Hildebrand (Editor), Celina Martinez-Cañavate (Editor), Lars Müller Publishers (March 21, 2023), 303 pp., $45

Through an extensive selection of essays, both “practical and visionary” projects, and over 200 illustrations, Touch Wood showcases how architects and designers are harnessing wood’s natural beauty, sustainability, and structural properties to create inspiring spaces. From Swiss timber architecture to Japanese joinery, it highlights wooden architecture’s aesthetic, environmental, and cultural dimensions.

Would you like to comment on this article? Send your thoughts to: [email protected]

Viewpoints

Archtober 2024: Tracing the Future, taking place October 1–30 in New York City, aims to create a roadmap for how our living spaces will evolve.

Projects

The swooping tile- and timber-clad portico draws visitors into the newly renovated art museum.

Products

Discover seven products that represent a new wave of bio-derived offerings for interior design and architecture.