Thoughtful: Towards the longevity of wooden buildings for climate change mitigation and adaptation

The building sector is no longer functional; if we wish to maintain a livable planet a major shift in mindset and practice is urgently needed. Wood construction has been identified as an important way to decarbonise the built environment. However, sourcing wood must consider all the values of the forests; so to avoid overharvesting, biodiversity loss and other damage to ecosystem services, we should use wood thoughtfully. New wood buildings should be designed for adaptation and disassembly and built to last, and the lives of old ones should be extended. Currently, little is known about the factors affecting the lifetime of wooden buildings and holistic comprehension is needed to support the transition towards long-lived and resilient building stock. In this paper we aim to better understand the lifespan of wooden building, the key factors affecting it, and propose means to extend the building lives; this can also support and promote new, durable, wood construction. Using a combination of literature study and semi-structured interviews, we explore factors affecting the longevity of wooden buildings and the reasons for major renovation or demolition. We adopt a process approach that takes the different events in the life cycle of a wooden building as the primary units of analysis and map the underlying reasons affecting building longevity within these units. Preliminary results suggest that the lifespan and sustainability of wooden buildings is a multi-layered complex matter that is already affected long before the actual building process starts, with forestry choices, planning, cultural aspects, investment, and legislation having an impact; and after the start of the building process by design, craftmanship and material choices, local attitudes, the understanding and knowledge of wood buildings and their aesthetics, as well as geopolitical trends, maintenance and renovation.