Reconciling Sustainable and Resilient Design in Cities: Cross Laminated Timber and the Future of Japanese Wooden Buildings

Abstract

Dissertation Abstract: In countries particularly susceptible to environmental disturbances like Japan, discourse has centered on resilient design: seeking building materials that withstand natural forces to protect populations while being the most up to date with international trends in technology and science. As a culture with a long history of wood use in buildings, the sudden surge in stone, concrete, masonry, and steel production and use in building applications following the Meiji Restoration of 1868 signaled a momentous shift in Japanese architectural practices and customs. While a preference for these “modern” materials generally continues today, the properties and characteristics of wood and wood-derived products are being reexamined in light of worldwide ecology movements and perspectives in sustainable design that had not existed prior to the mid-twentieth century.

Using the subject of material culture as a lens through which Japanese urban architectural history and political debates are brought into sharper relief, this thesis argues that manufactured engineered wood products like cross laminated timber (CLT) are a part of the larger ongoing discussion on how to solve urban problems and offer the ability to connect sustainable and resilient building design agendas in cities. In addition, if CLT and other wood-based materials are domestically grown and responsibly manufactured on a larger scale than exists presently in Japan, industrial productivity of wood from local forests will recover after long periods of stagnant development, a move heavily invested by the present Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and his administration.