▣ TYPE: Film
⧆ SUPPORTED BY: V&A Museum
▤ RUNNING TIME: 3m 57s
⧇ COLLABORATORS: Ella-Justine Frost / Mhamad Safa / Ben Cruise / Felix Koch / Jess Gough / Rachael Milliner / Evolving Forest / Amica Dall

Woodlands will sit at the heart of regenerative construction practices. Timber is a fantastically capable material; it can both span and bear load, and, when it is well specified and maintained, it can last for hundreds of years. Growing trees actively regenerate the land they take root in, creating above and below ground habitats, contributing to soil health and terrestrial water storage. If they are treated carefully once felled, they can continue to store carbon for longer than the time they needed to fix it from the atmosphere.To move away from monoculture as an approach to land use, we must also move away from a focus on graded timber and its byproducts as the sole materials to be drawn from these complex and diverse ecosystems.

Using our woodland resources more holistically can generate multiple materials streams, revenue forms and employment opportunities. For example, industrial timber production today often overlooks the very valuable resource which is within the outer layer of the tree; the barks, resins and saps which carry water and sugars through the body of a living tree. Indigenous communities across the globe have long understood how to work with these materials, and also how to extract them in ways that are not damaging to the long term health of the tree. As we move into a new material economy, we are both relearning this understanding of sustainable woodland cultivation and harvesting, and creating new technologies which eliminate the need for chemical adhesives and glues when we bind bark and other plant fibres together into innovative, low-embodied carbon sheet materials.