An urban ‘age of timber’? Tensions and contradictions in the low-carbon imaginary of the bioeconomic city
(2023) In Environment and Planning E: Nature and Space- Abstract
What will the low-carbon cities of tomorrow be made from? We see an unexpected answer today in the return of ‘premodern’/‘preindustrial’ materials to central cities and skylines. Champions of new mass timber materials have driven a race on iconic ‘plyscrapers’ and, increasingly, novel systems of industrial prefabrication. Drawing on the notion of sociotechnical imaginaries, we explore how advocates attempt to ‘fix’ desirable future cities and urban bioeconomies through this biomaterial. In doing so, we suggest that mass timber's emergent sociotechnical imaginary embodies a distinct kind of futuring, which we label ‘nostalgic futurism’, conjoining ‘technofuturist’ and ‘nostalgic-reparative’ visions. We find that, on the one hand, mass... (More)
What will the low-carbon cities of tomorrow be made from? We see an unexpected answer today in the return of ‘premodern’/‘preindustrial’ materials to central cities and skylines. Champions of new mass timber materials have driven a race on iconic ‘plyscrapers’ and, increasingly, novel systems of industrial prefabrication. Drawing on the notion of sociotechnical imaginaries, we explore how advocates attempt to ‘fix’ desirable future cities and urban bioeconomies through this biomaterial. In doing so, we suggest that mass timber's emergent sociotechnical imaginary embodies a distinct kind of futuring, which we label ‘nostalgic futurism’, conjoining ‘technofuturist’ and ‘nostalgic-reparative’ visions. We find that, on the one hand, mass timber proponents embrace competitive novelty, uniting drives for architectural distinction and high-tech disruption. On the other hand, aesthetic advocates put forward visions around the material's more traditional premodern/preindustrial associations, in narratives of biophilic design which claim therapeutic benefits of contact with visible nature in buildings. These conjoined forward- and backward-looking compulsions pose tensions and internal contradictions. Nostalgic-reparative visions risk greenwashing and reproducing unequal access to environmental amenities, while reinscribing regressive appeals to an imagined past. Meanwhile, technofuturist drives extend late capitalist growth imperatives and pressures for accelerated material churn in both forests and urban centres—while obscuring tough questions about mass timber buildings’ expected lifetimes and claims for long-term carbon sequestration. Conversely, a reimagined mass timber project might support more progressive movements for climate restoration, repair, and reparations.
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- author
- van Veelen, Bregje LU and Knuth, Sarah
- organization
- publishing date
- 2023
- type
- Contribution to journal
- publication status
- epub
- subject
- keywords
- cultural politics, Mass timber, plyscraper, sociotechnical imaginaries, urban bioeconomy
- in
- Environment and Planning E: Nature and Space
- publisher
- SAGE Publications
- external identifiers
-
- scopus:85164352825
- ISSN
- 2514-8486
- DOI
- 10.1177/25148486231179815
- language
- English
- LU publication?
- yes
- additional info
- Funding Information: The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation Programme under grant agreement no. 730053. Publisher Copyright: © The Author(s) 2023.
- id
- 4e6f396c-67ae-4e99-97d2-fe1379004db0
- date added to LUP
- 2023-08-23 16:28:28
- date last changed
- 2023-08-24 13:02:06
@article{4e6f396c-67ae-4e99-97d2-fe1379004db0,
abstract = {{<p>What will the low-carbon cities of tomorrow be made from? We see an unexpected answer today in the return of ‘premodern’/‘preindustrial’ materials to central cities and skylines. Champions of new mass timber materials have driven a race on iconic ‘plyscrapers’ and, increasingly, novel systems of industrial prefabrication. Drawing on the notion of sociotechnical imaginaries, we explore how advocates attempt to ‘fix’ desirable future cities and urban bioeconomies through this biomaterial. In doing so, we suggest that mass timber's emergent sociotechnical imaginary embodies a distinct kind of futuring, which we label ‘nostalgic futurism’, conjoining ‘technofuturist’ and ‘nostalgic-reparative’ visions. We find that, on the one hand, mass timber proponents embrace competitive novelty, uniting drives for architectural distinction and high-tech disruption. On the other hand, aesthetic advocates put forward visions around the material's more traditional premodern/preindustrial associations, in narratives of biophilic design which claim therapeutic benefits of contact with visible nature in buildings. These conjoined forward- and backward-looking compulsions pose tensions and internal contradictions. Nostalgic-reparative visions risk greenwashing and reproducing unequal access to environmental amenities, while reinscribing regressive appeals to an imagined past. Meanwhile, technofuturist drives extend late capitalist growth imperatives and pressures for accelerated material churn in both forests and urban centres—while obscuring tough questions about mass timber buildings’ expected lifetimes and claims for long-term carbon sequestration. Conversely, a reimagined mass timber project might support more progressive movements for climate restoration, repair, and reparations.</p>}},
author = {{van Veelen, Bregje and Knuth, Sarah}},
issn = {{2514-8486}},
keywords = {{cultural politics; Mass timber; plyscraper; sociotechnical imaginaries; urban bioeconomy}},
language = {{eng}},
publisher = {{SAGE Publications}},
series = {{Environment and Planning E: Nature and Space}},
title = {{An urban ‘age of timber’? Tensions and contradictions in the low-carbon imaginary of the bioeconomic city}},
url = {{http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/25148486231179815}},
doi = {{10.1177/25148486231179815}},
year = {{2023}},
}