How can building with timber help to address the climate crisis?

On Thursday 2nd December we hosted the first of our Make Room For Nature Debates.

To interrogate the issues around five themes that underpin Cullinan Studio's mission to reconnect people and nature, we have organised a series of cross-disciplinary panel debates, with the first focusing on Design for the Circular Economy and how building with timber can help to address the climate crisis.

The panel debated issues around:

• Natural capital - What does a regenerative built environment look like and what role does intuition and social innovation play in this?

• Embodied carbon - Net zero, measurement and benchmarking.

• Supply and manufacture - What timeframe are we working to? Designing the life of a building in the context of the climate emergency and RIBA/government carbon targets.

• Designing with timber - Fire, durability, disassembly, insurance, perception and barriers.

A recording of the session can be viewed here:

The panel:

• Charlie Law, Sustainability Director at TDUK

• Christiane Lellig, Director at Stratageme XYZ

• Liam Dewar, co-founder and Director of EURBAN

• Steven Johnson, founder and Director of The Architecture Ensemble

• The debate will be chaired by Alex Abbey, partner at Cullinan Studio and Chair of the TRADA Advisory Board.

More about the speakers:

Charlie Law is the Founder and Managing Director of Sustainable Construction Solutions, a consultancy that specialises in moving organisations towards a circular economy business model, with a key focus on responsibly sourced timber. He is also Sustainability Director at Timber Development UK (TDUK), the new entity formed by the merger of the Timber Trade Federation (TTF) and Timber Research and Development Association (TRADA), and Head of Contractor Engagement at Pallet Loop, a circular economy start-up.

Christiana Lellig is a social change consultant working towards a regenerative future. She has led national research programmes and behaviour change campaigns in various fields, ranging from environmental concerns to labour and social justice issues since 1999. She has worked for government agencies, local authorities, trade organisations, NGOs and businesses in Germany, France, Switzerland and the UK, most recently focusing on timber, forestry and the built environment. Christiane's key interest lies in transformative systems change across socio-cultural, ecological and economic dimensions.

Liam Dewar is an architect and a specialist in mass timber construction. Born in Edinburgh, he studied at the University of Bath before working in the offices of German architect Karljosef Schattner, Swiss architects Herzog & de Meuron, and Swiss engineer Jürg Conzett. He co-founded EURBAN in 2003.

Steven Johnson has worked for several firms in London including Cullinan Studio, where he was project architect for the Downland Gridshell, and Lifschutz Davidson. He founded The Architecture Ensemble in 2002 specialising in timber design. The firm has been involved in several private and community projects both in London and the Southeast including a series of industrial projects at the Woodland Enterprise Centre (WEC) at Flimwell, East Sussex. Steve has taught at several architecture and design schools including as Associate Professor at The Bartlett/UCL and as visiting tutor at the The Architectural Association’s Design Make programme at Hooke Park, Dorset.