Practising Wood in Architecture

James Benedict Brown is an Associate Professor of Architecture at Umeå University, Sweden. James graduated from the University of Sheffield’s School of Architecture in 2008 in 2012 was awarded his PhD from Queen’s University Belfast. His research interests are in critical pedagogy, architecture and wood, and design-build and live projects in architectural education, on which he has published extensively. He is the author of Mediated Space: The Architecture Of News, Entertainment and Advertising (2018) and with Harriet Harriss, Ruth Morrow and James Soane he is the co-editor of A Gendered Profession: The Question Of Representation In Space Making (2016). Forthcoming co-authored and co-edited books include Studio Properties: A Field Guide to Design Education (2025) and Architectural Thinking in a Climate Emergency (2025). Francesco Camilli is an architect and Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU) in Trondheim, Norway, where he researches how architecture and urban design practices can generate social engagement in the transition of cities towards climate neutrality. Between 2020 and 2022 he was a Research Fellow at the Umeå School of Architecture, Umeå University. Francesco graduated in 2016 from the Faculty of Architecture of Sapienza University in Rome, Italy, where he also obtained his PhD in 2020 at the Department of Architecture and Design. His thesis delved into participatory practices in contemporary architectural design. He has been involved in several research projects and initiatives, ranging from theoretical approaches to the affective dimension of spaces to large-scale Horizon projects linked to the New European Bauhaus initiative, and has presented and published his work internationally.

1. Introduction 2. The Architect and the Forest Case Study 1: Studio in the Woods, UK 3. The Characteristics of Wood Case Study 2: Hooke Park, UK 4. Designing and Building With Wood Case Study 3: the Institute for Computational Design (ICD) and the Institute for Building Structures and Structural Design (ITKE), Germany Case Study 4: Laboratory for Timber Construction (IBOIS), Switzerland 5. Teaching With Wood Case Study 5: Wood Program in Architecture and Construction, Aalto University, Finland Case Study 6: Design+Build Studio, University of Nottingham, England 6. The Ecology of Wood Case Study 7: Gramazio Kohler Research Case Study 8: InSitu Project Case Study 9: Rural Urban Framework 7. The Politics of Wood 8. A Look Back at the Forest