Puhutaan puusta (Let’s Discuss Wood) is a discussion club where all participants get to be heard. On Tuesday 19th of January we will discuss about the reality of wood with Sofie Pelsmakers. A fair, active and open discussion is promised! This discussion will be held in English.

Wood is always good. Or, is it? Wood is an old building material, yet today we are using it in new ways, so in a way it is a new ‘old material’. What other sustainability aspects matter for long-term sustainability? Let’s open up a discussion about the role of timber in sustainable architecture, and how we have to do more than build in wood for a truly sustainable and carbon neutral society.

Sofie Pelsmakers is an environmental architect, educator, and researcher with expertise in energy demand reduction and holistic sustainable architecture and housing design. Based at Tampere University, Finland, she is Chair in Sustainable Housing Design and Sustainable Architecture (Tenure Track Assistant Professor, www.sustainablehousingdesign.com/). She is interested in how buildings and spaces work in reality, how they influence users, and how they change over time. She is particularly passionate about bridging the information gap between research and knowledge application in design and building practice and education. She authored the ‘Environmental Design Pocket book’, and is co-author of ‘Energy, People, Buildings: Architecture for a changing world’ (2021) and guest edited ‘RIBA Design Studio: Everything needs to change: Architecture and the climate emergency’. Recent research projects include ‘Housing for Change’ (YH Kodit funded), ARCH4CHANGE (A digital climate change curriculum for architecture education: methods towards carbon neutrality, Erasmus+ funded) and RESCUE, Real Estate and Sustainable Crisis management in Urban Environments (Academy of Finland funded).

PUHUTAAN PUUSTA
Puhutaan puusta (Let’s Discuss Wood) continues the very successful Wood Works lecture series with an interdisciplinary, conversational and current touch. The aim of the club is to create an arc of interesting discussions that concentrate on a vast variety of topics, from the forest and its mystical levels to the horizon of the future tree visions. Each themed discussion is outlined by a top expert and open for anyone interested in the topic. The discussion club brings out interesting forest- and tree-related perspectives that provide depth, new views, and attachment surfaces to architects and others interested in the subject beyond their conventions. The discussion series is a collaboration between the Museum of Finnish Architecture and the Ministry of the Environment of Finland. The series is curated by architect Pekka Pakkanen.