Planet Tree

Lecture Transcript (60-Minute)

[Slide 1 - Intro: Pale Blue Dot]

Does everyone know what we’re looking at here? 

This is ‘The Pale Blue Dot’ - or more specifically, a photo of planet Earth in a beam of sunlight taken by NASA’s Voyager 1 - 3.7 Billion miles from the sun. Just a tiny little dot. So on that note, before we get started, I want to ask you all something. 

What is it that you think makes humans unique among all living things? What sets us apart? What do you think?

[Pause for student responses - they might mention things like consciousness, tool use, complex social structures, etc.]

The historian Yuval Noah Harari who wrote the bestselling Non-fiction book ‘Sapiens’ argues that what truly sets humans apart - specifically homo sapiens as compared with other historical humanoids - is our ability to collaborate in large numbers. He thinks this is only possible due to our unique ability to fabricate and tell stories - to believe in shared narratives. 

It's a compelling argument. But over the next hour, I'd like to challenge that, because there’s a part of me that doesn’t quite believe that storytelling is unique to humans alone. 

[Slide 2 - Skin] 

You see, we tend to think in human terms because that's the language we speak. Of course people speak many languages - Mandarin, Hindi, English, French, Spanish, Arabic,  etcetera. But above and beyond the dialects, humanity shares a commonality - a cross-cultural set of rhythms, etiquettes, and behaviors that make us unique as a species. A heritage that supersedes the differences we share across social, political, and economic status. 

For today, let’s keep it simple. I don’t think I can convince you in an hour that we are not special as a species - nor do I want to. I believe that we are special. Instead, I want to explore how trees and buildings might be more similar to us than we typically imagine - how they too tell stories, adapt, communicate, and create communities. I want to ask you to consider what this means for us as a species - what role we occupy, and how this role may or may not adapt  over time. 

At the end of the lecture, I’d like to hear again from you what you all think that role is, our role, and also what it could be. 

[Slide 3 - Index]

I want you to think about that, specifically as we explore the relationships between people, buildings, and trees, at multiple scales. 

[Slide 4 - Index Shaded]

We’ll start small. Let’s begin.

[Slide 5 - Cells]

I. Cellular Scale (10 minutes)

Like our bodies, and like the structures we build, the molecular structure of a tree is an intricate and complex web of relationships. 

[Slide 6 - Wood Cells]

At the most elemental level, trees, humans, and buildings share surprisingly similar organizational principles. 

Each system develops protective outer layers - a tree's epidermis, human skin, and a building's facade all mediate interactions with the external environment.

We all rely on sophisticated internal networks: Trees use phloem and xylem to move nutrients and water, the human circulatory and lymphatic systems distribute blood and immune cells, and buildings transport resources through plumbing, HVAC, and circulation pathways.

At the core of each system lies a rigid, essential support structure. A tree's heartwood provides central strength, human bones offer skeletal support, and a building's central core resists lateral forces while housing critical infrastructure. Each responds to environmental stress.

[Slide 7 - Cellulose Diagrams]

Cellular solids - like those shown here - are assemblies of cells with solid edges or faces, packed tightly together so that they fill a space. 

[Slide 8 - Cellulose Structures]

They are common in nature: wood, cork, sponge, and coral are examples that have been used in crafts and construction for centuries. More recently, people have made their own: foam-like honeycomb structures used not only in plastics, but in metals, ceramics, and glasses as well. Consider the similarities between the cellular materials in these two figures. Those on the left were manufactured by humans, and those on the right were manufactured by the natural world.

[Slide 9 - Wood + Bones]

Like our own bones, wood adapts and reinforces itself where needed. When a tree experiences wind, or the weight of snow, it builds stronger cells in response, just as human bones become denser from impact and exercise. 

[Slide 10 - Giraffe]

If insect pests start eating an African acacia,  the tree actually ‘tastes’ the saliva of the insect and sends out a chemical signal through the air that attracts predators that feed on that particular leaf eating insect. They have adopted a chemical language to protect themselves from harm. (Wollheben, Hidden Life of Trees) Can you imagine a world where our structures respond to stress as intelligently?

Where manmade materials are often only strong OR tough, natural organisms provide an exciting well of inspiration for scientists and designers alike, given their exceptional ability to be both. 

[Slide 11 - Amazing Materials]

tooth enamel and nacre (mother of pearl) have evolved to resist total fracture - they can stop cracks from spreading and avoid catastrophic failure by combining hard surface layers with tough subsurface structures. seashells, bones, and teeth achieve strength and toughness that far exceed their basic material constituents - they can achieve both lightness and strength that is unparalleled in many manufacturing processes.

Citation: Wegst, et.al. "Bioinspired structural materials" (Nature Materials)

[Slide 12 - Bio-Inspired Materials]

Trees need access to light, they need to withstand the wind, and they need to endure temperature fluctuations, so they have evolved to grow tall and strong simultaneously. As they grow, their cellular structure adapts to the challenges of their environments. 

In his book Bio-Structural Analogues in Architecture, Joseph Lim - as the title suggests- studies the natural world and develops architectural analogies for plants, animals, and natural materials, in a manner not dissimilar from what you are being asked to attempt in your first assignments. 

[Slide 13 - Madagascar Palm]

In one of these investigations, Lim mimics the wide-spreading, tapering growth patterns of buttress roots in the Madagascar Palm to explore a lightweight, tall, and slim structural module. By referencing the tree, and iteratively testing formal strategies that replicate its successes, Lim and his team developed amazingly abstracted congruous strutting patterns that retained similar structural properties to the tree. 

The key isn't just that wood is strong, but that it's intelligently strong - it grows exactly what it needs where it needs it. In order to distribute weight efficiently for this tree-inspired design - structural members were iteratively applied and tested by Lim’s team. 

[Slide 14 - Madagascar Palm]

This efficiency, born from millions of years of evolution, offers lessons - demonstrated through Lim’s test here and many other examples as well - for how we might build more resourcefully, more empathetically, and more elegantly. It offers lessons for how understanding wood on the molecular scale can help us to understand ourselves and our assumptions as designers. 

Trees must learn not only to stand upright and support their own weight, but to face challenges and hardships that mirror our own - the need to stay strong under pressure, to heal from damage, and to adapt to changing conditions. 

When Lim studied the Madagascar Palm, he wasn't just looking at its form - he was studying how it responds to pressure. Trees, people, and buildings do this at the cellular scale - as we just briefly discussed. But they also do so, importantly, at other scales and in other ways as well, which brings us to a critical parallel between us:

[Slide 15 - Individual Scale - Index]

We all share a fundamental "individual presence." 

[Slide 16 - Activity Slide 16-20]

Research shows our brains process buildings, trees, and people through similar neural pathways. When we encounter any of these, our brains automatically try to make sense of them through visual patterns and features. Let's explore this pattern recognition together through a quick exercise. I'll show you some images, and I'd like us to focus specifically on identifying observable physical features - the way mute objects tell stories -  and the immediate associations they create.

[Slide 17 - Treebeard]

Let's start with something fantastical. This is Treebeard from Lord of the Rings. What stories do you think the animators were trying to tell us through the way they depicted Treebeard here? What features do you notice first? I see deeply textured bark that creates a weathered appearance, the way the branches curve to suggest movement, and how the lighting and shadows create depth around the eyes. These physical features might remind us of ancient trees we've encountered. They may remind us of the quiet wisdom of the forest - a type of knowledge that can only come through patience and time. 

[Slide 19 - Dancing House - Frank Gehry, dancers]

Now let's look at Gehry's Dancing House. What features stand out? Notice how the curved glass panels create a sense of movement, how the building appears to lean, the contrast between rigid and flowing forms. What architectural elements remind you of dance?

[Slide 20 - The Horror Tree, Stowlangtoft Suffolk]

Here's a unique tree formation. What specific shapes and patterns do you observe? Look at how the branches twist, how shadows fall, the texture of the bark. What natural forms or movements does this remind you of?

[Slide 21 - Summary] 

Our brains naturally look for patterns and make connections based on physical features we can observe - curves, textures, shadows, proportions all tell stories. This pattern recognition helps us understand and relate to our environment, whether we're looking at architecture, nature, or each other. It’s how we process music, it’s how we feel art.

We have something called ‘mirror neurons’ that fire both when we perform an action and when we observe someone else performing that same action. 

[Slide 22 - Empathy]

The act of empathy is a personal one. Just as we are hardwired to feel in response to our environments, we direct that same reflexive care inwards towards ourselves to accept who we are as individuals. To see ourselves as we are - as living, adaptive beings. Telling good stories starts with empathy - nobody wants to listen to a story that doesn’t take its listener into account. Nobody wants to listen to someone who doesn’t think they have anything important to say. Find the balance.

To tell a good story we first must recognize our shared innate ability to respond, grow, and thrive in the face of challenge and adversity. In other words, to adapt. This is our strength - a strength we share with many living things - and one that premises our ability to tell interesting stories.

[Slide 23 - Hormesis + Growth]

Like us, trees carry the physical memory of stress in their structure. When damaged, they've evolved not just to survive but to thrive in response to environmental stressors. This process, known as hormesis, is a form of stress response that has historically been leveraged by gardeners to create material changes in plants throughout their development.

Trees learn to support themselves by adapting to changing environmental conditions. When an old growth tree is felled, sometimes the trees around it that had been relying on it for support – either by leaning on its thick, sturdy trunk or by accessing nutrients from its root system, have a difficult time adapting to the canopy gaps created in its absence. Formerly comfortable trees become unstable, and it can take between three and ten years for them to become firmly rooted again.

[Slide 23 - Fecundity]

But the fallen tree itself continues to participate in the forest's story. As it decays, it provides nutrients and shelter for new seedlings, hosting communities of fungi and insects that enrich the soil. 

During the Devonian period, roughly 419 million to 358 million years ago, trees and plant life dominated the planet, and as a result, we had far too much oxygen in the atmosphere, which eventually led to a shift in the balance of the global ecosystem and the emergence of oxygen consuming animals. This speaks to a deeper truth about growth and adaptation - that stress, damage, and death are not separate from life but intrinsically bound to it.

To quote Annie Dillard, “The terms are clear: if you want to live, you have to die; you cannot have mountains and creeks without space, and space is a beauty married to a blind man. The blind man is Freedom, or Time, and he does not go anywhere without his great dog Death.”

If it does survive, in the absence of a fallen neighbor, learning stability takes trees a lot of work. Painful micro-tears that are caused by the tree bending in the wind must be healed, and the tissue strengthened. By redirecting energy towards strengthening its weak, painful areas, the tree can not grow upwards as quickly, and while the canopy gap means that there is more light available, leaves that have become adapted to low light are often very sensitive and tender to the sudden onslaught of scorching sun. Only after all foliage has been replaced will the tree finally feel comfortable again. 

[Slide 24 - Building Hormesis]

Where people and plants grow and adapt to stressors, buildings age differently. As Mostafavi and Leatherbarrow note in "On Weathering," - materials erode, connections loosen, and systems degrade. Given that buildings are inanimate, the responsibility falls on us as architects to shape the identity and impact of the structures we design. So, what if we designed our buildings the way forests design their ecosystems?

Like people, every tree expresses itself uniquely. It tells stories through its scars, the shapes it takes, and the way it changes with each season. Buildings carry memories in their worn stone steps, sun-faded walls, and familiar scents as humans do in our posture, our movements, and our ways of being in and responding to the world

Each individual has the power to strengthen or weaken themselves and their community. One single tree can stabilize a forest edge, and one thoughtfully designed building can anchor a neighborhood, just as one person's actions can transform a social environment. 

[Slide 25 - Agency + Impact: Microclimates]

These figures show the cooling effect of canopy cover (described by regression coefficient). Line color indicates canopy cover (CC) percentage. This is (a–b) Soil temperature. (c–d) Surface temperature. (e–f) Air temperature. In other words, the temperature of the earth, surfaces, and air aren’t just cooler under larger canopies, but smoother and more stable. A single large tree can also regulate soil humidity, enrich soil nutrients from leaf litter and root turnover, and soften lighting conditions - all of which create more hospitable growing conditions for smaller plants and animals nearby. 

Interestingly, even just a small change can really matter.  ‘Ecologists have discovered that as little as a 2 degrees F (or 16 degrees C) change in the average temperature of a lake will shift the dominant fish population from bass to catfish as one species becomes more efficient than the other’. (Thermal Delight)  

The farther and more densely that trees spread their canopies, the better equipped they are to cultivate a hospitable microclimate, nurture young seedlings, and make an impact on their environment. 

Reference: Ellison et al. (2005) "Loss of foundation species: consequences for the structure and dynamics of forested ecosystems" - Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment, 3(9):479-486

[Slide 26 - Buildings + Behaviors]

Buildings, too, even conventional buildings, create microclimates. The envelope of a square building has at least six - the south side warmed by the sunny wall, the north side in shade most of the time, the east side with its morning sun, and the west side with the afternoon sun, buffeted from the prevailing wind. The inside is buffered from the outside, and the roof is more exposed to rain, wind, sun, and snow. 

[Slide 27 - Building Types by Climate]

Envelopes - which you’ll learn more about later in the semester from my colleague Brad - adapt based on vernacular needs. 

Desert dwellings are often made from clay and stone because they have a high heat capacity - absorbing heat during the hot days and releasing it at night. 

Historically, dwellings in hot, humid, tropic zones have been made from bamboo and reeds because of their ability to avoid reradiation of heat. 

In rainy areas, large roofs and thin paper walls have been employed to deal with humid summers.  

The igloo provides maximum resistance and minimum obstruction to winter gales. An ice glaze increases thermal performance, and the dome-like shape maximizes the volume of interior space while minimizing structure. (Thermal Delight in Architecture) 

[Slide 28 - Textures + Sensation]

The way individual buildings are designed can foster or discourage certain activities and behaviors in their occupants and visitors. They actively shape and influence human activities through their individual character and affordances. 

Brain scans indicate that tactile sensations stimulate areas of our visual and auditory cortices, and visual sensations stimulate areas of the auditory and somatosensory cortices. One implication of this is that any surface that does not enhance our experience, diminishes it. (Goldhagen, Welcome to your World). 

Our actions and choices can similarly transform the social, ecological, and built environments. Just as a tree or building can anchor and stabilize an area, organization, neighborhood, or community, human behaviors, values, and actions can have an outsized impact as well. 

In other words, we create microclimates too - and not just physical ones based on proximity. 

This begs the question - How much of a difference can one person make?

[Slide 29 - Social Overview]

Now, I certainly don’t know the answer to this question, and I doubt that anyone does - this isn’t the sort of thing that can be answered definitively. More of a ‘time will tell’ situation. However, the following passage from Peter Wollheben’s ‘The Hidden Life of Trees’ offers an analogy that I feel is as good as any for getting to the root of this question. (Pun completely intended)

[Slide 30 - Nodes]

“The stones were an unusual shape: they were gently curved with hollowed-out areas. Carefully, I lifted the moss on one of the stones. What I found underneath was tree bark. … I took out my pocket knife and carefully scraped away some of the bark until I got down to a greenish layer. Green? This color is found only in chlorophyll, which makes new leaves green; reserves of chlorophyll are also stored in the trunks of living trees. That could mean only one thing: this piece of wood was still alive! I suddenly noticed that the remaining “stones” formed a distinct pattern: they were arranged in a circle with a diameter of about 5 feet. … The interior had completely rotted into humus long ago — a clear indication that the tree must have been felled at least four or five hundred years earlier.”

But how can a tree - cut down centuries ago - still be alive? Without leaves, a tree is unable to perform photosynthesis, which is how it converts sunlight into sugar for sustenance. This ancient tree was clearly receiving nutrients in some other way — for hundreds of years.

[Slide 31 - Roots]

A fascinating area of scientific research (done in large part by Suzanne Simard, who wrote the bestselling book ‘Finding the Mother Tree’), reveals that this tree that Peter Wollheben found in the woods was not unique. 

Neighboring trees help each other through their root systems — either directly, by intertwining their roots, or indirectly, by growing fungal networks around the roots that serve as a sort of extended nervous system connecting separate trees. 

They appear able to distinguish their own roots from those of other species. 

They can identify their own relatives. 

They can tell when a nearby tree is sick or needs more help, and they send nutrients to aid them - even to other tree types and species. 

Together trees create an ecosystem that moderates extremes of heat and cold, stores a great deal of water, and generates a great deal of humidity. And in this protected environment, trees can live to be very old. 

But to get to this point, the community must remain intact no matter what. If every tree were looking out only for itself, then quite a few of them would never reach old age. Regular fatalities would result in many large gaps in the tree canopy, which would make it easier for storms to get inside the forest and uproot more trees. The heat of summer would reach the forest floor and dry it out. Every tree would suffer.

But still, these epic old tree stumps aren’t producing any nutrients, so what are they adding to the forest? If anything, they’re taking up space that other young trees could use to grow - to reinforce the canopy, to produce more resources for the forest to consume - so why are they kept alive for hundreds of years? What value do they serve?

[Slide 32 - Community]

The Harvard Study of Adult Development (also known as the Harvard Grant Study) is one of the longest-running longitudinal studies in history. Beginning in 1938, researchers tracked 268 Harvard sophomores, later expanding to include inner-city residents and women. The study has generated numerous findings over 85+ years, but its most striking conclusion is that close relationships are the strongest predictor of both happiness and health.

Dr. Robert Waldinger, the study's fourth director, summarizes the key findings in his TED talk and book "The Good Life": People who had warmer, more connected relationships lived longer, had better mental and physical health, and reported higher life satisfaction. The quality of relationships at age 50 was a better predictor of physical health at age 80 than cholesterol levels or other biological measures.

Poor connection was found to have similar health impacts to smoking up to 15 cigarettes a day, increasing risks of heart disease, stroke, and early death.

[Slide 33 - Forest]

Do you think this is why trees live so long? What have they figured out? What might we learn from them to understand how to communicate with and support each other better?

Just as ancient trees serve as living archives of their forest communities, west african cultures have long recognized the vital role of griots – the storytellers and oral historians who maintain the collective memory of their communities. These knowledge keepers, like the mother trees that nurture forest networks, preserve and transmit vital information across generations.

[Slide 34 - Buildings - Network]

Buildings, too, can serve as story keepers for human civilization. Some structures stand for millennia while others crumble within decades. Why? Their longevity, like that of trees and human communities, often depends on their integration into the fabric of society and their ability to adapt to changing needs over time. Their relevance to the collective.

Buildings that stand the test of time are often built with durable materials and thoughtful detailing that allows them to age gracefully. They are both site specific, and adaptable. They tell important cultural stories that root generations through a sense of shared belonging. This makes them invaluable monuments to a shared legacy that people want to preserve. 

Buildings, like mother trees, can serve as hubs that create connection and legacy through their deep connection to community memory, and they can also create entirely new legacies by honoring and anchoring the communities around them.

Consider the Pantheon in Rome, standing for nearly 2000 years - its endurance stems not just from its innovative engineering and quality materials, but from its phenomenological role as a meaningful gathering place. 

[Slide 35 - Bilbao]

When the Guggenheim opened in 1997, Bilbao was an industrial port city with high unemployment rates. The museum sparked what economists now call "the Bilbao Effect." Within three years after its opening, it had generated over $500 million in economic activity, created thousands of new jobs, inspired widespread urban renewal and infrastructure improvements, and drew over a million visitors annually

So you see, a single building, like a mother tree in a forest network, can nurture and shape an entire urban ecosystem. For better or worse. Just as trees communicate and share resources through underground networks, the museum created new networks of cultural and economic exchange that altered the city's social fabric. 

Buildings stand for beliefs. They are metaphorical representations of what is valued in a culture. They stand the test of time when the values they embody persist across generations. They can take an active role in that persistence. 

[Slide 36 - Intro Slide]

Buildings, trees, and people, can serve both as keepers of established legacies and creators of new ones. Enduring impact comes through relationships between individuals and their communities. 

How these communities choose to interact - both internally between members of a group and externally between one group and another, ultimately becomes their cultural legacy. 

Much like the way trees pass information and resources through their root networks, and buildings transmit cultural memory through generations, craft knowledge represents an unbroken chain of understanding between past and present. From the earliest wooden tools to today's most sophisticated timber buildings, each evolution in how we work with wood tells a story about our relationship with the natural world and with each other.

[Slide 37 - Legacy - Primitive Hut]

In his influential 1755 'Essay on Architecture,' Marc-Antoine Laugier presented the concept of the 'primitive hut' through a famous frontispiece showing a classical muse pointing to a shelter made of tree trunks and branches. Represented is lady architecture, laying on the crumbling remains of ancient architectural feats, pointing skywards, towards an allegorical structure where nature, and building are one. 

You may have seen this in other architectural history courses you’ve taken, as this essay, and particularly the frontispiece, created by Charles Eisen, became famously symbolic of the idea that architectural form ought to embody what is natural and intrinsic. This plate and essay are a call to action for architects to defer to nature as teacher, and pay structural homage to the natural world. 

[Slide 38 - Legacy - Kalambo]

Of course, at this point, in 1755, learning from and building with wood was not new. Actually, recent discoveries at Kalambo Falls in Zambia reveal that humans were creating sophisticated wooden structures at least 476,000 years ago, with interlocking logs and precisely cut notches - a level of technological sophistication previously thought impossible for early hominins. 

And due to the nature of wood and how it degrades over time, this ancient example of construction may hint at an age-old relationship between wood, humans, and the built environment that extends far beyond our collective memories.

The ancient word for designer was ‘architekton’ - a combination of the root words ‘archi (chief) and tekton (builder). In other words, skilled craftspeople. 

Through the Renaissance, the architect was responsible for integrating design and construction knowledge through direct material engagement. But as building systems grew more complex and specialized during the Industrial Revolution, a rift began forming between design and construction that continues to widen. This separation has real costs - not just in terms of expensive miscommunications, but in our decreasing collective understanding of materials and how they behave. 

In addition to the disjunction in knowledge keeping between planner and builder, how do you imagine this changing relationship with wood has shaped our cultures and communities?

Throughout history, the most profound achievements in wooden architecture have emerged from a deep understanding of trees - not just as a material, but as living beings. 

[Slide 39 - Viking]

In Viking craftsmanship, when building their legendary ships and stave churches, Viking builders searched the forest for trees that had grown in specific ways - finding curved branches that naturally matched the hull's shape they envisioned. They understood how wood grew, how it moved, how it responded to force. Their vessels could flex with the waves while remaining incredibly strong, all because they worked with wood's natural properties rather than forcing the wood to their will.

[Slide 40 - Japan]

In Japanese construction, builders oriented wooden posts so their grain would wick water upward, mimicking the tree's natural behavior when it was alive. When they didn’t want this effect, they painted the otherwise vulnerable ends of their beams. 

They knew intimately how different species of wood would move and settle over time, and developed joinery systems that allowed this movement while maintaining structural integrity. Their buildings embrace wood's tendency to expand and contract with the seasons - celebrating this natural rhythm, and the natural aging and weathering process that accompanies it. (Nakashima, "The Soul of a Tree")

[Slide 41 - Studio Gang]

The most famous living architects maintain this tradition of material empathy in both low and high-tech explorations that represent a deep understanding and care for the natural world. Studio Gang transformed a cordwood masonry technique into modern load-bearing walls at the Arcus Center. Their materially efficient Lincoln Park Nature Boardwalk echoes natural forms through sweeping curves of laminated wood, and their Writers Theater creates a wooden lattice that filters light like a tree canopy.

[Slide 42 - Kuma]

Kengo Kuma scales up joinery techniques to create extraordinary structures like the Sunny Hills complex wooden lattice and the GC Prostho Museum's innovative "cidori" joint system. At the Yusuhara Wooden Bridge Museum, this dramatic cantilever was only achieved through a deep understanding of wood's tensile properties.

And there are many more examples of craftspeople architects and structures that opt to flow with the natural tendencies of their materials. What connects these examples isn’t genius. This degree of material understanding is certainly attainable if you don’t already have it. The way to get it is simple:

[Slide 43 - Divider]

It involves spending the time to understand wood's essential nature. Playing with it, testing it, living with it, failing with it, studying it, and loving it. Material empathy means listening to what the material wants to be, and helping it get there. To quote Yanagi’s Unknown Craftsman, "Nothing is more precious than the unspoiled character of raw material... The closer we are to nature the safer we are; the further away, the more dangerous." (p.215)

Both built structures and human craft practices have coevolved with the natural world, reflecting deep cultural relationships with wood and the environment. The strongest works - from the most low-tech to the most technical, arise from understanding the material, which can only come from spending time with it. 

V. Conclusion - Planetary Scale + Future 

[Slide 44 - Intro Slide]

Now the big picture. We’ve arrived at a critical moment in our relationship with forests. Today's mass timber revolution forces us to ask questions about what we need and value - at a molecular level: as individuals, as designers, and as storytellers that carry legacy forward. 

[Slide 45 - Skin]

When we build with wood, we're participating in an ancient dialogue between human culture and forest ecology. Consider that the most profound lesson to be learned from this ongoing and evolving relationship - between ourselves, our buildings, and our trees, is about empathy - the premise to any good story. 

Empathy. Not only as an emotional response, but as a design principle. Storytelling through design can amplify the truth of how trees communicate, adapt, and support themselves and their communities. As designers, we can learn and share crucial lessons for the planet and for our own future by adopting the skin of another, and striving to understand the world from that perspective. 

[Slide 46 - Tree round]

This brings us full circle. Trees, people, and buildings all have the capacity to be responsive, regenerative, and deeply connected to their communities. Understanding the potential for each, the roles of each, and the possibilities that can arise from caring about and celebrating what makes each unique is a beautiful and epic endeavor. 

Every culture has its own profound relationship with trees and forests - its own stories, traditions, and ways of understanding and working with wood. The examples we've explored today are just a few of many perspectives united by a single fundamental truth: to know is to love.

This semester you have an opportunity that I am jealous of. It is an opportunity to test out ways to build with wood, and to learn how to love it at all scales - from the cellular to the planetary - to listen to and honor its stories, and to take a stance of your own.

When we design with timber, we're participating in a story that stretches from ancient forest wisdom to right now. One that spans cultures and continents across time. Our challenge is to write the next chapter of this history with grace, drawing on both timeless wisdom and new understanding. 

It’s a hard problem - one that I expect is nearly impossible to solve within only three short months: learning a new language, learning how to love a thing that can’t speak for itself, adopting a set of beliefs and traditions and a value system - the way actors adopt roles and become them. 

[Slide 47 - End]

Back to the beginning. Why do you think I started with this image? 

From all the way out there, 3.7 billion miles from the sun, the whole world looks like one dot. If you didn’t know anything about the Earth and who inhabited it, you might believe that’s just one thing, no? 

At the beginning of class, I asked what makes humans unique among living things. After exploring the parallels between trees, buildings, and people - particularly in how they tell stories and support their communities - how has your perspective on this question evolved?

We've looked at wood at multiple scales - from cellular to planetary. At which scale do you think architects have the greatest opportunity to innovate in their relationship with wood? Why?

If trees could tell their stories directly to us, what do you think they would want us to know about designing with wood?

Thinking about the Pale Blue Dot image - how might understanding our planet as one interconnected system change how we approach material selection and building design?

And lastly, as a species, as individuals, and as a community here at CMU, What are we composing? What are we decomposing?

Thank you.