If you are interested in learning more about innovative wood structures, environmental aspects of building with wood and general wood design, come to our symposium at UMass in November (1st-2nd). We at BMATWT are organizing this annual conference for the first time and are excited about a great international lineup of speakers.

AIA/CES credits will be available and this is a great event to network with future employers, research collaborators, industry representatives and others.

More information (including a program) is available at: http://www.woodstructuressymposium.com/

Hope to see you there!

Carpenters' and others' marks at a gate at the Marksburg castle, Germany.

Now what kind of a suggestion is that?!? A good one, trust me. It all comes down to global warming and reducing greenhouse gases.

Some background first: When a tree grows, carbon dioxide is processed in the good-old elementary school photosynthesis and stored in the wood as Carbon (while releasing yummy oxygen as a by-product). As long as the wood is not destroyed by biodeterioration (i.e. rotting) or burned, carbon dioxide is not released. As a result, over its lifetime (which can be very long for buildings), wood acts as a natural carbon dioxide storage.

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A team from the ETH university library in Switzerland has digitized what they call the "Construction Memory of Switzerland" ("Baugedächtnis Schweiz Online" bzw. "Mémoire du bâti en Suisse online") - essentially two architecture and engineering magazines: tec21 and Tracés.

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It's award season (or rather trade fair season, which usually brings along some awards). Following up on my posting of the link to the North American Wood Design Award winners, here is now the result of the German Wood Design Awards. Although everything on the web page of the Deutscher Holzbaupreis 2007 is in German, there is a great PDF available for free download that illustrates all winners nicely.