Wood houses - Resources

People in Action, updated 4 July 2018

Build your wood house while protecting nature and the environment. This is the update of selected resources on environmentally friendly houses made of wood, the major building material that’s renewable and sustainable over the long term.

Forest Woods House (Bente Jønsson; CC0 Creative Commons)

Wood sustainability is achieved by using certified wood from sustainably managed forests. (Main certifications: FSC, PEFC, SFI, ATFS, etc.).

Wood Wise: Building Planet—and People—Friendly Homes. This is a video by Wood, Naturally, a campaign with many resources on environmentally friendly residential wood construction, including how-to articles and a YouTube channel.

(Video embedding enabled/allowed by Wood, Naturally)

Another complementary campaign is Think Wood, promoting “the economic, environmental and societal benefits of using softwood lumber in commercial, community and non-residential building applications.” For example, the following video (from their YouTube channel), Building Green: Design a Sustainable Future with Wood, explains “we’re moving into a wood century ... you can be part of a revolution of building with this sustainable and renewable and natural resource”.

(Video embedding enabled/allowed by Think Wood)

Southern Pine: Green Building, by the Southern Forest Products Association (SFPA), explains “why wood building products are sustainable, responsible and environmentally friendly.” They include useful resources, such as forest certification for sustainable managed resources, and green building rating systems.

Sustainable construction: Wooden house. “The wood used in sustainable construction is certified and originate in responsible logging: the manufacturers plant new trees for each tree they fell.” Types of wooden houses, advantages and disadvantages, durability...

NRDC: Efficient Wood Use in Residential Construction. Online excerpts from a handbook, practical guide to saving wood, money and forests. For example, using certified wood from sustainably managed forests, among many other technical details. Published by the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC).

See also NRDC’s brief article How to Build a Better Home: “... homebuilding doesn’t have to translate into forest destruction. By using smart design and forest-friendly products, builders can create new homes that save trees and money.”

And there is practical advice as well in NRDC’s How to Buy Good Wood, “your guide to purchasing sustainably sourced lumber and furniture.”

[PDF] Using Wood Efficiently: From Optimizing Design to Minimizing the Dumpster. “Using wood more efficiently saves time, money, energy, and resources—for you, your customer, and your community.” A detailed, illustrated report prepared by Building Science Corporation for the US Department of Energy’s Building America Program.

A room with a view. This Deutsche Welle video shows a modern family timber house submerged in Swiss mountains nature. By architect Pascal Flammer.

Wood Design & Building is an award-winning magazine and the only one that is exclusively about wood use in architecture and construction.