Michael Green: Dreaming Up Wooden Skyscrapers

The Vancouver-based architect, Michael Green, lives up to the “green” in his name. He’s an innovator in his field with a vision for us to face the issues of growing global housing needs and the impacts that current building practices have on greenhouse gas emissions and climate change. His state-of-the-art, ultramodern ingenious answer is… Wood.

I’ve recently begun to follow a curiosity I’ve had about the use of wood in modern architecture since stumbling upon a video that opened my eyes to the potential for wood as a renewable resource that can actually sequester carbon dioxide during its lifetime as a building material.

For this post, I thought I’d share a very inspiring 12-minute TED Talk with you, in which Michael Green discusses the reasons behind his dream to see a future built environment that includes wooden skyscrapers. I hope you take the time to watch the video if your curiosity has been piqued even the slightest bit.

As I watched I felt surprised at the information I was learning. I felt moved at the idea of having Mother Nature’s fingerprints in our built environment. And, more than anything, I felt inspired, as I so often feel, at the creative spirit of our human family in facing the challenges of our day.

I hope to be able to share more with you in future posts about the use of wood in our contemporary and future built environments as I learn more, and I hope that our readers who are woodworkers, builders, architects, and all who care about the planet, will share your thoughts and reflections with us here at the Tall Earth Blog in the comments below, or on our Facebook page.