Trees Are Tall and Strong

Three short thoughts about wood

This week has mainly been work on a bathroom we're renovating. We've had to tear it down to the studs. Seeing the "bare bones" of the house has caused me to reflect on wood as a material. It’s underneath where I’m living much of my life!

Wood as a building material has such a strange logic to it: "Trees are tall and don't fall down. What if we made buildings from trees, so they can be tall and not fall down?" I find something so unpretentiously and endearingly funny about this simple logic.

Working with some hand tools, too, has taught me about the grain of wood. Talking about wood grain, if you're unfamiliar with it, ends up with something that appears superstitious: that the wood is a lot stronger along the direction that it grew. I can imagine a skeptic's response: "What, does the 'spirit of the tree' live on and curse the people that abuse it? That's ridiculous. What about the history of the tree could continue on in the wood after it is cut?" And yet it does!

One final illustration, this one taken from D.C. Schindler. Consider a wooden table made with whole pieces of wood, and a table made from pulverized wood glued back together (particleboard, I believe it is called). Which is better? Why? How? When?