Timber and Bamboo Build Fast Without the Heavy Carbon

Most building materials cost a lot of energy to make. Concrete and steel are baked and smelted at great heat, releasing carbon as they are produced. Wood and bamboo do the reverse. They grow by taking carbon out of the air and locking it into their fibres.

Timber and bamboo build fast without the heavy carbon, because the material grew itself and stored carbon doing it.

A Material That Stores Carbon

A wooden beam is mostly carbon that used to be in the sky. As long as that beam stays in a building, the carbon stays out of the atmosphere. Build with wood from forests that are replanted and you have a material that keeps drawing carbon down, batch after batch.

• ▸Wood holds the carbon it captured for the whole life of the building.
• ▸Bamboo grows back in a few years, far faster than a timber tree.
• ▸It is light and quick to work with, so building goes faster.

A timber frame is a forest’s worth of stored sunlight and carbon, held in place. Few materials give you strength and a carbon store in the same piece.

Bamboo Punches Above Its Weight

Bamboo is technically a grass, yet it rivals timber for strength and beats it for speed. It can shoot up in a single season and be ready to harvest in a few years, where a building tree needs decades. In the right climate it is one of the most renewable structural materials on the planet.

Treat It Right and It Lasts

Wood and bamboo have one weakness, which is moisture and the rot and insects that follow it. The old builders knew the answer. Dry it well, keep it off the ground, give it a good roof, and protect it from damp. Cared for that way, a timber building can stand for hundreds of years.