Material Cultures transforms woodland waste into sustainable sheet materials

For the V&A museum's 2024 Make Good installation, design and research studio Material Cultures has developed alternatives to plywood and OSB made from underused woodland resources including pine needles and birch bark.

The Woodland Goods project was developed for the V&A's Make Good: Rethinking Material Futures programme, which investigates the use of natural, renewable materials in design and architecture.

Material Cultures was invited to explore how British woodlands might be able to supply the construction industry with environmentally responsible materials beyond standard processed timber.

The studio focused on exploiting the natural properties of three underused materials: bark, natural glues and pine needles. These formed the basis for research into building materials for a post-carbon future.

Material Cultures collaborated with woodland experts Evolving Forests to identify suitable tree species for the project, while fabricator Erthly helped transform the materials into products that could be used as alternatives to plywood or chipboard.

One of the issues the studio identified in its research was the reliance on coniferous trees for construction, which can lead to monoculture forestry that harms biodiversity, depletes water systems and destroys native species.

The designers proposed a different approach that makes the most of the varied building materials that could be harvested from more regenerative and biodiverse woodlands.

"These exciting materials centre ecological thinking, showing how the status quo can be transformed," said the studio, which has previously focused on using multi-species timber and hemp-based materials for projects such as an experimental low-carbon house in Somerset, England.

"Changing the way we grow trees could affect how we make buildings, for example by shifting to using mixed species that might be lower yield but more sustainable," Material Cultures co-founder Summer Islam told Dezeen.

Some of the panels produced for the exhibition are made from silver birch and redwood bark, which both have naturally waterproof properties that make them suitable for use as cladding.

The solid sheets were made by layering strips of bark in alternating directions before compressing and heating them. This process activates the lignin in the bark, which acts like a natural glue and binds the material to itself.

The studio also experimented with bark chips and pine needles, which did not respond to heat and pressure so were instead combined with bio-resins to produce composite sheet materials.

"These are materials that are typically regarded as waste in wood production," Islam pointed out. "In sawmills, bark is just chipped off and discarded but the sap it contains is a great natural adhesive so we found a way to use it."

Bark would typically be sold off as mulch, biofuel or composted, while pine needles left to decompose after tree felling can make the soil in single-species forests overly acidic.

Responsibly harvesting these materials and giving them a practical purpose in construction could support the creation and management of resilient woodlands capable of surviving the changes currently impacting our climate.

To demonstrate how their sheet materials could be used, the designers adapted Alvar Aalto's iconic Stool 60, adding tops made from pressed birch and sequoia.

The prototype sheet materials are being presented at the V&A until autumn 2025, alongside some of Material Cultures' experiments and a film documenting the studio's research.

Material Cultures was shortlisted for Dezeen Awards 2023 emerging architect of the year and previously collaborated with Pakistani architect Yasmeen Lari on a pavilion made from wood and reeds that demonstrates flood-resilient building methods.

The photography is courtesy of the V&A Press Office. 

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