Alison Brooks on Timber: Interview in Catalonia’s Leading Newspaper
Alison Brooks’ latest interview by Antoni Ribas Tur in Ara, the most widely read newspaper written exclusively in the Catalan language, is now available online under the title “Exposed wood helps people feel better / La fusta vista ajuda la gent a sentir-se millor.”
The interview coincides with Brooks’ appearance in Forested Future, a documentary directed by Petr Krejčí and produced by The American Hardwood Export Council (AHEC) with Alison Brooks Architects, which recently featured at BARQ Festival, an international architecture film festival held in Barcelona, Spain. During the conversation, she shared her perspective on some of the pressing issues of our time. She also delves into the political challenges and innovation opportunities of timber construction, alongside the spiritual connection that the material elicits.
“Wood is one of the ways architecture gets closest to nature,” Brooks observes. She believes that working with wood, because of all its intrinsic qualities, brings a natural and emotional connection. “The way wood expresses growth and the passage of time through its grain connects us with something larger than ourselves: nature, the unmade world,” she adds.
Brooks also addressed the need to overcome the fire-risk stigma associated with mass timber. She referenced The Smile, the first project constructed using large-scale hardwood cross-laminated timber (CLT), as a demonstration of the economic viability and environmental sustainability of timber as a building material. She acknowledged that current trade restrictions also impede the broader adoption of timber construction.
However, as Antoni notes, Brooks sees a silver lining in these challenges. “Crises like this renew attention to local forests, ecosystems and cultures – and how we can make them more sustainable and productive,” she explains. “Working with wood is a way of life. It sustains communities – from forest managers to carpenters – and in the case of Indigenous peoples of North America, it reflects thousands of years of symbiosis with forests.”
