Words on Wood

Forests take up about 30% of the earth’s surface and come in many shapes, sizes and types. From chilly boreal forests in the north, to temperate forests, dry forests, mangroves, rainforests and more, each forest has specific needs and nuances, and faces its own ecological challenges. Around the world, there are communities and teams of people who oversee forests, ensuring they regenerate and survive. Commercial foresters, indigenous tribes and local foresters all care for them in different ways: some are managed through planting; others use low intensity forestry techniques; and others are studying how the careful removal of trees can, in some instances, benefit forests overall. In this episode, hosts Oli Stratford and Evi Hall speak to Jim Smalls and Mike Williams of the U.S. Forest Service, former forestry consultant at the Architectural Association Jez Ralph, and designer Ash Pales to ask what caring for a forest on a day-to-day basis actually looks like and how design can play a meaningful role in promoting forest health and sustainable management. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Staining wood is a complex and often laborious process that requires careful thought from designers and makers. Considering the complexities involved, and the fact that natural wood is beautiful in and of itself, this Making short explores the benefits wood staining can offer for designers.When done right, staining beautifully enhances the intricate and unique characteristics of wood. To elaborate further on this, architect, designer and educator, Giles Tettey Nartey, joins this episode to discuss why wood stain is an integral part of the design and narrative behind his pieces Interplay and Communion, as well as the process involved to achieve the desired finish. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

We’re probably all aware that climate change is having, and will have, a big effect on our forests. Increasing levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere and rising temperatures give way to adverse consequences such as droughts and fires, causing rapid tree mortality rates. So, how can we plan for the future to ensure these forests, in the face of climate collapse, are around for future generations?Joined by Leander Anderegg, Assistant Professor at the University of California; Ron Waukau, Forest Manager for Menominee Tribal Enterprises; and Marianne Goebl, Managing Director of Artek, this episode asks how we can manage forests in response to rapid, and longer term, changes precipitated by climate collapse, and explores design’s relationship with climate change, questioning how the decisions designers and architects make can impact forests. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Trees have been a principal building material for most of human history, with archaeological findings showing that humans were using stone axes as early as 40,000 years ago.With the advent of machinery during the Industrial Revolution making woodworking more efficient and accessible, this Making short episode asks why a designer today might opt for hand working over industrialised techniques. Host Evi Hall speaks to industrial and product designer duo Inma Bermúdez and Mortiz Krefter about why they decided to employ hand working techniques in the making of The Lost Herd, a series of animal-depicting wooden furniture sculptures. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Our next instalment of Words on Wood revisits education, this time examining whether there is a need for a more robust curriculum around timber and its properties within architecture courses. The guests all straddle the architectural and education spaces and bring some really good insights into areas that are working, and some not so well, within architectural education. Oli and Evi are joined by Judith Lösing, teacher at the AA and director of East Architecture, Kenn Busch , founder of Material Intelligence and Climate Positive Now and Hanif Kara, co-founder of AKT-II and professor at Harvard GSD.  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Building on the success of previous seasons’ ‘Tree Shorts’, this season introduces a new series of ‘Making Shorts’. These bite-sized episodes zoom into production techniques for timber, providing concise case studies through interviews with designers on the making processes behind specific projects. In this episode, we speak with Norwegian designer-maker Anna Maria Øfstedal Eng about creating furniture with a chainsaw and her experience working with American maple in a recent AHEC project. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Building on the success of previous seasons’ ‘Tree Shorts’, this season introduces a new series of ‘Making Shorts’. These bite-sized episodes zoom into production techniques for timber, providing concise case studies through interviews with designers on the making processes behind specific projects. Travelling to Australia, the first Making Short of the season focuses on CNC milling, tracing its connections to traditional hand carving methods. Designer Trent Jansen and Tanya Singer and Errol Evans, First Nations woodworkers and artists, explain how they employed high-tech milling machines to create a series of sculptural furniture that tell stories about the climate crisis. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Delving deep into the world of wood, featuring unexpected and timely topics from across forestry, architecture and design, the award-winning podcast Words on Wood has returned for a fourth season.A collaboration between the American Hardwood Export Council (AHEC) and Disegno, Words on Wood launched in 2021 as an upfront and wide-ranging end-to-end exploration of all things wood-related, from forestry and processing to design and disposal.  Venturing into the world’s forests, sites of timber production, and design and architecture studios, the podcast examines how multiple industries intersect through a single material. Each episode is structured around interviews with leading architects, designers, educators, manufacturers, and forestry professionals who live among and care for trees on a day-to-day basis.The fourth season opens with an in-depth exploration of an often-overlooked and misunderstood timber product: veneer. Featuring contemporary designers Jorge Penadés and Rio Kobayashi, as well as Cathy Lynne Danzer of timber manufacturer Danzer, the first episode dives beneath the surface to explore the design potential of veneer and to examine how a new generation of experimental practitioners are pushing it in intriguing and playful new directions. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In the final episode of Words on Wood season 3, we are joined by multi award-winning science and environmental writer, Fred Pearce. Fred’s groundbreaking work covering the natural world spans at least 15 books. We sit down to discuss the topics behind his latest book, “A Trillion Trees”, which gives a fascinating insight to how the world’s forests can be restored without planting and following two key premises: ensuring that ownership of the forests is vested in the people who live in them, and to give nature room. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The series concludes by venturing into ‘The Wooden Hospital’. Starting with the work of architect Ab Rogers, who won the 2021 Wolfson Economic Prize 2021 for his radical approach towards reformulating hospital design, the episode looks at whether our existing healthcare spaces are fit for purpose. Could wood be the key to redesigns that create more humane and compassionate facilities? Featuring a group of designers and architects who are changing the way that healthcare operates, the episodes explores the role that timber can play in creating spaces that better support human health. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this episode we look into the social aspects of wood and how timber education is approached across different levels: from amateur enthusiasts, through to academia and university education. This episode includes an interview with celebrated woodworker John Makepeace and Helen Welch, founder of The London Furniture School, and asks whether design education currently provides students with a sufficiently full, sophisticated picture of wood’s ecological entanglements, the variations between species, and the environmental impact of the material. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In episode two, the hosts examine the different ways in which humans have baked, charred and heated wood to create thermally modified timber (TMT). The episode includes interviews with furniture designer Jan Hendzel, timber consultant and researcher Neil Summers, and architect Kirsten Haggart of architecture studio Waugh Thistleton.Words on Wood is hosted by Oli Stratford and India Block, and produced by Evi Hall. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Season three of Words on Wood kicks off with an exploration of tree diseases through the lens of ash, looking into the risks posed to this tree species across North America and Europe by the invasive emerald ash borer insect and the fungus responsible for ash dieback disease. How do these threats spread through forests and affect timber and, once they have struck, what happens to the dead and dying trees? We speak to Sheridan Coakley, founder of SCP Furniture, about the recent One Tree project, challenging designers to create a piece using a felled tree suffering with ash dieback, and Emma Hudgins - an expert on invasive species. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

To celebrate the launch of Perpetuum Mobile, and the return of Milan Design Week, host Oli Stratford speaks to Benedetta Tagliabue, the director and head architect of the international firm Benedetta Tagliabue - EMBT Architects. Showing as part of the INTERNI Design Re-Generation exhibition event at the Università degli Studi of Milan, Perpetuum Mobile – The Dancing Furniture of Enric Miralles & Benedetta Tagliabue’s home, brings together recreations of nine of the furniture pieces and objects that the architect designed alongside his partner Benedetta Tagliabue for their home in Barcelona, Spain. The exhibition includes tables, seating and shelving designed between 1992 and 1999, and reproduced in sustainable American hardwoods, but never put into commercial production. Although each piece is unique, they all demonstrate Miralles’ vision of the ‘house in motion’ – a domestic space in which each piece of furniture does not have a defined place or a set purpose, but can be moved or modified to meet the needs of the moment.Perpetuum Mobile – The Dancing Furniture of Enric Miralles & Benedetta Tagliabue’s home.Designed by Benedetta Tagliabue – EMBT Architects, in collaboration with Fundació Enric Miralles.Supported by the American Hardwood Export Council (AHEC). Dates6–13 June 2022VenueAula Magna Hall, Università degli Studi di Milano, via Festa del Perdono 7, 20122 Milano Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Faced with the challenges posed by illegal logging, a global consortium of organisations has now turned to science to find a solution. The World Forest ID is a new initiative that uses georeferenced wood samples to be able to analyse any timber and discover where exactly it was harvested. In this episode, the podcast talks to the people behind the project and dives into the development of this new technology, examining how greater information about provenance may lead to better governance of the world’s forests. Words on Wood is hosted by Oli Stratford and India Block and produced by Evi Hall. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

While technology and digital processes accelerate and permeate design, a number of designers have turned towards traditional craft processes to find contemporary modes of expression. Designer Stephen Burks and Orhan Niksic of Bosnian furniture brand Zanat join the podcast to talk about their approaches towards traditional woodwork and how 21st-century design can find fresh social resonances in timeworn techniques. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Wood is an ancient material, but one that is still providing designers with new processes, forms and techniques. In this episode, the podcast talks to designers Sam Hecht, Yves Béhar and Elissa Brunato, all of whom have worked with wood as a cutting-edge material that can continue to reinvent itself.This episode was hosted by India Block and Oli Stratford and produced by Evi Hall. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This second season of Words on Wood sees Disegno’s editors Oli Stratford and India Block navigate the intersections between the worlds of forestry and design and architecture, focusing in on topics including timber construction; experimental uses of wood and cellulose; a world wide timber tracing network; and a look at how designers and makers are bringing fresh relevance to traditional woodcraft practices. With architecture under more pressure than ever to improve the sustainability of buildings, Words on Wood looks at the potential for timber structures to reshape the field. Given the opportunities and challenges facing the construction of tall timber buildings, what role does wood have to play in the future of our built environment? Engineer Andrew Lawrence and architect Lina Ghotmeh discuss the complexities of the issues. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In the conclusion of the first season of Words on Wood, we explore how using timber in architecture and design can positively impact our mental, emotional and physical well-being. With special guests architects Alex de Rijke, Asif Kahn and Amanda Sturgeon, author of Creating Biophilic Buildings. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In the third episode of Words on Wood we explore the challenges facing the design and timber industries to cut out illegal logging, and how architects and designers can respond, with guests Formafantasma, Constance McDermott and Rupert Oliver.This episode was hosted by Kristina Rapacki and Oli Stratford and was produced by Evi Hall. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.