Forest

By the time Sebastião Salgado died in May this year, he and his wife Lélia Wanick Salgado had transformed 600 hectares of degraded farmland in the Atlantic Forest into a diverse ecosystem with 3 million trees. The forest repaired the land, creating a much-needed home for wildlife.

Increasingly, forests are planted to repair cities too. In Karachi in Pakistan, Yasmeen Lari has introduced Miyawaki forests into pedestrianised streets to cool the overheated air, while in Milan, the trees installed on Boeri Studio’s Bosco Verticale in 2014 offer shade to the city’s super-wealthy.

Cities rely on forests in other ways, as architects and developers increasingly embrace building at scale with timber. A Swiss wood construction company commissioned a showpiece to advertise its products and expertise, while Grafton Architects’ timber architecture school at the  University of Arkansas offers students a masterclass in building with wood. Timber is an important material in remedying housing crises, as seen in Urbanitree’s new social housing in Barcelona.

But overconsumption still looms large – constructing out of timber at the same profit-fuelled rate remains unsustainable. Instead, we must imagine, as Paulo Tavares explains in the keynote (p6), that ‘the foundational design‑act does not rest on clearing the forest, but rather on the continued practice of its cultivation’.

1524: Forest

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cover (above) Around 66 million trees are cut down each year in British Columbia in Canada. Despite signing few agreements with First Nations people, colonial governments assumed ownership of large swathes of forest and leased it to logging companies. Just a fifth of British Columbia’s old‑growth forests remain. Credit: Cavan Images/Getty

folio (lead image)
The Forestry Building was built as part of a 1905 expo held in Portland in the US. Constructed from unpeeled tree trunks, like a giant log cabin, the building contained exhibits about forestry and local animals. The building burnt down in 1964

keynote
Forest polis
Paulo Tavares

building
University of Ancestral Knowledge, ceremonial centre and housing prototype by Rosenbaum in Acre, Brazil
Guilherme Wisnik

reputations
Sebastião Salgado and Lélia Wanick Salgado
David Campany

building
Sian Ka’an reforestation nursery by Rodríguez + De Mitri in Quintana Roo, Mexico
Ana Karina Zatarain

building
Ecostreets by Yasmeen Lari with the Heritage Foundation of Pakistan in Karachi, Pakistan
Oonib Azam

building
Lintianshan Forestry Culture Park by Yen Partnership Architects in Fenglin, Taiwan
John Lin

outrage
Israel’s green colonialism
Sufi Boise

revisit
Bosco Verticale by Boeri Studio in Milan, Italy
Davide Tommaso Ferrando

building
Passeig de Boca de la Mina by Batlleiroig in Reus, Spain
Blanca Pujals

building
Social housing by Urbanitree in Barcelona, Spain
Eleanor Beaumont

essay
Flatpack forest
Erin Putalik

building
Architecture school at the University of Arkansas by Grafton Architects with Modus Studio in Fayetteville, US
Raymund Ryan