#004 from wood to tree2021 —, ongoing
Currently, logging practices primarily extract logs to be processed for lumber while leaving behind branches and leaves. These decompose quickly and their nitrogen and phosphorus nutrients are quickly taken up by the surrounding environment. Yet, this absence of ‘liter and woody biomass’ is a factor leading to thinner, less nutritious soils. Larger logs, or the woody parts of trees composed primarily of lignin and carbon decompose slowly and offer refugia to a variety of living things. For example, the form and qualities of a nurse log invite saplings and other critters, while its biodegradability invites below-ground symbiotic fungi. These above and below-ground ecosystem interactions play a vital role in carbon and nutrient cycling. Neukom Vivarium is a hybrid work of sculpture, architecture, and environment. It features a “found” sixty-foot-long "nurse log". The log has been removed from the forest ecosystem and now inhabits an art system. Its ongoing decay and renewal represent nature as a complex system of cycles and processes. 
    The manufacture of dimensioned wood products to be used for building construction material continues as a source of demand for renewable building materials. Therefore, it is important to promote forest stewardship as ethically and continued sources of supply are dependent on forest health. From Wood to Tree acknowledges entropic, time-based material cycles enabling the forest environment to digest reclaimed wood, eventually increasing soil health and promoting forest growth. This process suggests the reversal of wood extraction from the forest and suggests how lumber products (and their matter) might be returned (reinserted) to tree inhabiting environments.
   From Wood to Tree explores methodologies for returning reclaimed lumber to the forest exploring material circularity in a more radical stance where humans and construction are not the main, not only protagonists to benefit from material cycling.

Type: Pavillion, Design-Research, Materials
Location: The Dell, University of Virginia, Charlottesville
Date: March 15, 2021
Team: Liz Gálvez, Sarah Zhang, Chloe Wang
Former: Ignis Zhang, Meredith Magness
Photography: David Alf, Meredith Magness, Katie McDonald

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