Michael Green: Why we should build wooden skyscrapers

ORIGINAL: TED




Michael Green wants to solve architecture’s biggest challenge -- meeting worldwide housing demand without increasing carbon emissions -- by building with carbon-sequestering wood instead of concrete and steel.

Michael Green: Architect

Why you should listen to him: Michael Green is calling for rapid systemic change in the way we build. To end the global housing and climate crises, we need to get past innovation-stifling regulations and well-meaning but misguided ideas popularized by mainstream media. His proposal: Forget steel, straw, concrete, shipping containers, and rammed earth. Use wood to erect urban skyscrapers. “When the Eiffel Tower was built, nobody thought it could be done. Now it’s a symbol of Paris,” Green told the Vancouver Sun. “Projects like it really triggered an innovation on how cities were built. Man moves by innovation and [by] aiming for the moon.”

Green, whose projects range from retail boutiques and housing in North America to a sustainable community in Asia, explores the plausibility of tall wood buildings -- the costs, benefits, and engineering challenges -- in an extensive 2012 white paper. The TED Talent Search winner also teaches and mentors at the University of British Columbia’s School of Architecture and Landscape Architecture (SALA).