Firewood supply plant and farm that provides a local source of income and activity through carefully managed supply chains and low-intensity forestry. Supporting a relational network comprising architecture, forestry ecology, and supply chain economics with a social and ecological focus
Context
In the 1950s, Japan grew most of its own timber. By 1970 this figure had plummeted, and continued to drop in the 2000s. For centuries, Japan relied on forests for construction timber and thatch, firewood for cooking and heating, fallen leaves for agricultural fertiliser, and wood for making utensils and tools. But, as the post-war Japanese economy boomed, building preferences shifted to concrete and steel, farmers used more chemical fertilisers, imported oil replaced many fuel needs, and low-cost timber from regions including the US pushed Japanese woodland regions and economies into decline. Kurimoto, a rural region on the outskirts of Tokyo, faced precisely this problem. This economic context was coupled with a labour shortage: as Japan’s birthrate has plummeted since the 1970s, regions such as Kurimoto have struggled to replace an ageing, dwindling workforce.
Practice
Working with Kurimoto residents and businesses, the Japanese architectural practice Atelier Bow-Wow designed a firewood supply plant to provide a safe workplace that included elderly and disabled workers, and helps people reconnect with nature while earning a living. This provision engages people otherwise marginalised from work, exemplifying a care farm model of combining social welfare with agriculture.
This model contrasts ecologically and economically extractive norms prevalent in the globalised timber trade that intensify production and undercut competitors. Kurimoto Timber Network re-localises and de-intensifies timber production by engaging the local community in activities centred around its small-scale forest area, sawmill, woodshop, laboratory, and farm.
The project is an intervention that creates ongoing opportunities within an existing social and economic context of timber production, helping ecological habitats and a community to flourish. Not only does this project contrast traditional philanthropic models of aid provision, it also rethinks the traditional architectural project’s focus on objecthood, newness, and the completion of a building, by emphasising the importance of iterative and long-term processes of collaboration. In so doing, the project demonstrates that engaging local industrial, economic, and community stakeholders offers an ethical, ecological alternative to the extractive approaches of globalised timber and construction industries.