A Selective History of the Forests and Wood Construction in the US
I will be presenting at ASCE-RI Oct 19th "A Selective History of the Forests and Wood Construction in the US”. I am far from a history buff but have been reading 4 or 5 fascinating books about the nations forests from the 1600s until now and how our relationship with the trees has changed with time. I will describe wood production practices over the last couple centuries as well as the industrialization of the wood process, why and where thing developed (why do we not use our local wood for example), hardwood vs softwood use in New England, some Innovators and innovations in design and use, etc. Also at the end we will examine what we can do to continue to protect our most vulnerable woodlands and describe various species under particular threat into this next century. I highly recommend the following books that helped me prepare this talk: "Traditional Timber Framing" by Dell Upton within "Material Culture of the Wooden Age" by Brooke Hindle (Editor) "The Hidden Life of Trees" by Peter Wohlleben "American Canopy: Trees, Forests, and the Making of a Nation" by Eric Rutkow "A Splintered History of Wood" by Spike Carlsen "The Great American Forest" by Rutherford Platt "New England Forests Through Time : Insights from the Harvard Forest Dioramas" by David R. Foster "Reading the Forested Landscape: A Natural History of New England" by Tom Wessels
MIT Theater Almost Complete
We were the engineers of record for this adaptive reuse of an existing factory building to the new campus theater (Eng: Structures Workshop, Arch: DesignLab). We added an additional level and roof as well as transfered various existing columns over large performance spaces, with new pile caps/foundations.
MIT