Defence of dissertation in the field of wood product technology, M.Sc. (Tech.) Atsushi Takano

The title of the dissertation is "Wood in sustainable construction – a material perspective: Learning from vernacular architecture".

The public examination of the doctoral dissertation of M. Eng.(Architecture)  Atsushi Takano will be held on Friday, 4 September 2015, at 2 PM at Aalto University School of Chemical Technology.

Is wood a sustainable building material?

It is already well known that wood is, in general, an environmental friendly material. However, a holistic understanding of the advantages/disadvantages of wood products over building life cycle is still missing. This thesis focused on the application of wood in construction and aimed to gain a wider understanding of wood products so as to consider how they can be further developed from a life cycle perspective for the sustainability of buildings. In order to tackle this question, this study referred to the traditional building solutions in conjunction with the modern solutions.

The results demonstrated that there are both strengths and weakness to the use of wood in sustainable construction. In this sense, the importance of diverse perspectives to building materials has been highlighted. It was also discussed that wood may contribute to the environment more positively when it is used more. This feature seems to have a potential making a paradigm shift from the current approach to the environmental problems, which sorely considers a reduction in consumption and emission. Since wood has more diverse environmental characteristics than other common building materials such as concrete and steel, it would be important to consider a specific approach and use for wood in construction based upon the proper understanding of their characteristics as learnt from traditional buildings.

Opponent: Professor Holger Wallbaum, Chalmers tekniska högskola (Chalmers University of Technology), Sweden.

Supervisor: Professor Mark Hughes, Aalto University School of Chemical Technology, Department of Forest Products Technology.

Venue: Puu2 hall, Tekniikantie 3, Espoo.