Timber: A Changing Material And Its Effect On
The Architectural Form
Author(s)
S. Costa Santos
Abstract
Architects rediscovered timber as a material in the mid 1980s. This renewed
interest in timber and its marketing as ecological raw material is related to the
increased concern for our planet’s ecological balance. Timber, as opposed to
steel, glass or reinforced concrete, needs a transformation process with much
lower energy consumption. This means that the resource deficit in timber could
ultimately translate into an energy deficit. While the availability of good timber
for building columns and beams may shrink, the pressure to develop new
materials using timber by-products will increase. Supported by the study of
architectural examples that show how the more consistent physical properties of
the material offer new applications in timber architecture, this work analyses
how choosing timber as an ecological material influences the architectural form.
Finally, it concludes that the more effective timber-production technology (that
minimises the use of energy in manufacturing and assembly) can form the basis
for a new form in timber architecture no longer based on the linear member but
the panel and can develop new directions in architecture.
Keywords: timber architecture, timber technology, timber panel, timber
manufacturing methods.
1 Introduction
Architects such as Peter Zumthor, Herzog & de Meuron, and Burkhalter & Sumi
and also the Voralberg school in Austria (especially Baumschlager & Eberle)
rediscovered timber as a material for self-expression in the mid-80s. The
renewed interest in timber and its marketing as ecological raw material for the
furniture and building industries is a clearly European phenomenon, not only
related to the increased concern for our planet’s ecological balance. According to
Keywords
timber architecture, timber technology, timber panel, timber
manufacturing methods.
Related Book
Other papers in this volume
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