Cascading Potential for Recovered Wood from Heavy Timber Frame Typologies in Pre-Modern Dwelling Buildings in Madrid

Wood is one of the premodern materials par excellence. It lost presence due to the appearance of steel and concrete in construction, however, now it is regaining importance for its structural performance, its capacity to fixate CO2 and its low energy demand during manufacturing process.

In our current climate emergency, rethinking how resources are treated has become a need, and wood can be in the centre of the debate. The use of recovered timber in construction could be an important measure to widen the lifespan of this material. Cascading could help in the development of new economic models and potentiate environmental-friendly others like circular economy.

Premodern buildings could be a great source for reclaimed timber because the presence of timber in them is almost inevitable. A quantification of amount of recoverable timber that can be obtained from them is interesting in order to potentiate the reuse of the material.