I live in big, beautiful British Columbia, and my life is fueled by exploring nature both at home and around the world. In fact, this is from the Himalaya just a few months ago when I was climbing there. Nature is a huge part of my life and it inspires my creative and professional world as well. I work hard with my team inspired by nature in Vancouver, designing buildings.
我住在英属哥伦比亚, 那里幅员辽阔,环境优美, 在海内外探索自然 就是我生活的全部。 这张照片拍摄的是 几个月前的喜马拉雅山, 当时我爬到了这个地方。 大自然在我的生命中 占据了很大一部分, 激发我的创造力和专业能力。 受到大自然的启发后, 我和团队在温哥华日以继夜地工作, 做建筑设计。
As an architecture practice, we have two main missions. Our first mission is to focus on making beautiful buildings that serve our community and respond to the needs of the people within them. The second mission we have is focused on the fact that the first mission has a huge impact on the planet and on climate change, and we have to work to reduce it.
在建筑实操中, 我们有两项主要任务。 第一项任务, 是专注打造优雅的建筑, 服务我们的社区, 满足社区居民的需求。 第二项任务,是认清事实, 意识到我们的第一项任务会对 地球和气候变化造成巨大的影响, 因此我们需要减轻这些影响。
As a result, our firm is often called a highly sustainable practice, and the truth is, it really isn't. In fact, I don't believe that word "sustainable building" or "sustainable practice" is really true in most cases. And the reason is the built environment uses an enormous amount of the world's resources, and far too few of those come from renewable resources. In fact, the vast majority of the material that man makes on Earth goes into the built environment.
我们公司一直因 高度可持续的实践而著称, 但事实并非如此。 实际上,我不相信“可持续建筑” 或“可持续实践” 在大多数情况下真的可以实现。 因为建筑环境 使用了地球上大量的资源, 而这些资源几乎都不是可再生资源。 实际上,地球上大多数的人造资源 都为建筑环境所用。
The other challenge with buildings is they represent about 39% of our greenhouse gas emissions, or, in North America, almost half of our greenhouse gas emissions. For reference, because it's not talked about enough, all of cars, planes, automobiles, the entire transportation sector combined represent only about 23%. So buildings are a huge part of the problem and not discussed enough.
建筑业面临的另一个挑战, 是其温室气体排放高达39%, 这相当于北美洲 近一半的温室气体排放量。 由于很少提及, 这里供大家参考, 包括汽车、飞机在内的所有 交通运输行业的排放,仅占23%。 所以说,建筑是个令人头疼的问题, 但却鲜有提起。
The reason for that are both the heating and cooling of buildings, of course, but also the materials that go into buildings. And when it comes to materials, the buildings' structures, what holds the buildings up, really are composed of four major materials in every city on the planet: concrete, steel, masonry and wood. And of those four materials, three of them have very, very high carbon footprints, in particular concrete and steel.
这背后的原因,除了 建筑本身的供暖和制冷系统, 还有建筑用料。 提到建筑用料、建筑结构、 建筑支撑, 不管在这个星球上的哪个城市, 它们都离不开这四样材料: 水泥、钢材、砖石和木材。 在这四样材料中, 有三样的碳足迹非常非常高, 尤其是水泥和钢材。
Now, wood is the only material on that list that's also a renewable resource and sequesters carbon. So it's the only pathway as a material that actually can get us to carbon-neutral buildings. And it's the pathway we choose in our practice to build all buildings.
木材是四样材料中唯一一样 吸收碳的可再生资源。 因此,作为材料,它是唯一 能够让我们打造碳中和建筑的途径。 这也是我们建造建筑时 所选择的途径。
So our practice has been a timber-only practice since our inception and as part of our advocacy for the use of wood in buildings, about 15 years ago, I wrote a book called "The Case for Tall Wood Buildings," and that book taught the lesson of why we should do this and how we should do this. And in the beginning, it was a very unlikely concept that people had a hard time believing. And yes, we figured out that we could have built the Empire State Building entirely out of wood.
我们从最开始就使用纯木材, 响应我们木制建筑的倡导, 我在15年前写过一本书, 名为《高层木制建筑案例》, 这本书讲的是 我们为什么要这么做, 以及我们该如何做到。 刚开始时, 这一概念教人难以置信。 我们发现, 我们完全可以使用木材 建造帝国大厦。
That early idea now is a mainstream concept around the world in sustainable building practices, and there are hundreds of tall wood buildings that have either been built or are currently under design and construction, and thousands more to come.
这一早期想法现在演变成主流观念, 渗透全球的可持续建筑实践, 成千上万座木制高楼拔地而起, 有的已经建好, 有的正在设计或建设中, 未来我们将会看到更多的木制大楼。
But wood as a sustainable idea is not sustainable unless it actually comes from sustainable forest practices. And much of the planet has forests that we actually need to keep standing as part of our climate solution. And in fact, lots of the world have forests that are under deep threat. If we think about where population in the world mostly resides and where it's growing the quickest, in fact, most of those areas either don't have forests or also are aware these forests are threatened.
虽然木头符合可持续观念, 但伐木本身不可持续, 除非进行可持续伐木。 地球上大多数土地 拥有我们所需的森林资源, 以解决部分气候问题。 实际上,很多地区的森林资源 遭到严重威胁。 试想世上人口最密集的地方, 以及人口增长最快的地方, 就会发现, 这些地区要么缺乏森林资源, 要么不重视森林危机。
And so wood, as good a solution as it is and a solution that I still very much believe in, is not a global solution. Most of our cities are still built in those first three materials: steel, concrete and masonry, and they have a high carbon footprint. We're working hard and people are working hard to make concrete and steel better. But unfortunately, tweaking those existing materials is making them only modestly better. In the case of concrete, it's estimated they can reduce the carbon footprint of concrete at best between 10% and 35%. And that's a long way to go from where we need to be, either at carbon neutrality in our cities, or better yet, in carbon-sequestering, carbon-negative buildings.
因此,木制建筑虽然是好方案, 我也一直坚信它的好, 但它不适用于所有地区。 我们大多数的城市建造 离不开头三样材料: 钢材,水泥和砖石, 这些材料的碳足迹很高。 我们和所有人一样, 努力地让水泥和钢材变得更好。 但遗憾的是, 这些材料在调整后的效益不过沧海一粟。 拿水泥举例, 水泥的碳足迹 预计最多降低10%至35%。 而我们距离自己 需要实现的目标还很远, 不管是在城市碳中和方面, 还是在碳封存或负碳建筑上。 我们如何实现这些目标?
So how do we get there? After building about 1.5 million square feet of mass timber I still believe in that material, but I keep asking myself this question: what is the alternative to “the big four”? And the answer, in my mind without question, is studying and understanding what's happening in nature and nature's structures, combining that with modern biotechnology and combining that with all of the computer modeling that allows us to make incredibly efficient structures going forward. All those things together are creating what we call “Five.”
大约150万平方英尺 的大型木构建筑落成后, 我仍然坚信用材的重要性, 但我常常问自己: 这“四大”材料的替代品是什么? 毫无疑问,我认为答案是 对大自然及其结构的学习和了解, 并同时利用现代生物技术 以及种种计算机模型, 帮助我们推进高效结构的实现。 这些创造出来 的结构我们统称“老五”。
Five is a fifth way, a new structural material that will replace, in my mind over time, “the big four.” It's an all-organic material made from forests and crops that can be grown all over the world. It's strong and safe, and it eventually will be cost-effective and competitive against any other material available.
老五是第五种方式, 一种全新结构的材料, 将在一段时间后替代“四大”。 这是由木头与农作物 制成的全面有机材料, 世界各地都可以种植。 这种材料牢固安全,性价比高, 能够超越现有的其他材料。
Now, this isn't a new idea. Products made from natural materials, thankfully, are growing up everywhere. There's a huge industry of biomaterials in academia, as well as in private business. And we're seeing new products come online every day. This community is strong and hopefully getting stronger and our contribution to it is really focused on this idea of the biggest material use, which again is the building structure.
这个想法在今天算不上新鲜。 庆幸的是,世界各地 天然材料制成的产品越来越多。 生物材料行业在学术界 和私营企业中都大放异彩。 我们发现每天都有新上线的产品。 强大的社区有望变得更强大, 我们对其的贡献其实体现在 主要的用料,即建筑结构上。
So how does it work? So the idea is based on the same concept of how a tree works or any other vascular plant. As we zoom in, a tree is sort of made of lignified tissues that go from the bottom of the tree to the top, as are plants. And those lignified tissues have within them, in cell structure, cellulose fibers and lignin that together make the plant strong in order to grow and thrive. And those two materials, the fiber in the plant, as well as the lignin, as well as other binders, make up the ingredients of what we call Five.
具体如何实现呢? 这个原理类似于 一棵树或导管植物的作用原理。 我们放大来看, 一棵树是由木质化组织构成的, 从树的底部到顶部, 植物也是如此。 而这些木质化组织在细胞结构中, 有纤维素纤维和木质素, 它们让植物变得强壮,茁壮成长。 这两种物质, 植物纤维和木质素, 以及其他粘合物, 构成了我们所说的第五原料。
Studying the fibers and how they work in plants is another part of how we're trying to make this structure. And if we all imagine cutting through a branch as the image just showed, we know that nature finds very efficient ways to create structures, and they're often round like a branch. But as humans, we tend to make boxy structures. And the reason we do that is concrete, steel and these materials and wood, are more efficient when we form them as a box or when we cut them as a box, It's more affordable and that's why we see it.
了解纤维及其在植物内的运作模式 是我们尝试建构新结构的另一途径。 想象我们如视频所示砍下树枝, 我们便会发现大自然 在结构创造中极其高效, 这些结构如同树枝横截面一样圆润。 但对人类而言, 我们常常制造方形结构。 这是因为水泥、钢材、木材等材料 要想得到高效利用, 需要我们搭建方形结构, 或者把它们切割成方状物, 这样更加经济实惠, 因此我们才会这样做。
So a typical structure has columns and beams and a slab that make it up, and they're very boxy forms, as you can see in the image. Now different structures behave very differently all the time. This particular structure is an example from a tall building, but if we were talking about a house, it would be a different structure. Or if we're talking about a hockey rink, it would be another structure.
所以说,一个典型的结构 由柱、梁、板构成, 如图所示,这些构件均呈方形。 一直以来,不同 的结构有不同的用途。 这个特定的结构为高楼大厦所用, 但如果是家里,会使用不同的结构。 如果是冰球场,又会是另一种结构。
So just in this example, how do the forces work? Well, you have the force of the weight of people and you have the force of the weight of the building above. You have wind blowing on the sides or an earthquake impacting it. The forces, as they press down on this particular example, in blue are forces of compression. That’s the squeezing forces, pushing down. And the forces here in yellow are the tension forces, the pulling apart on that structure. When we put those together, we see how the forces move to the ground through this simple frame. And it's sort of a flowing diagram.
以高楼为例,力的作用如何实现? 我们要思考的有人的重力、 楼上建筑的重力, 以及四侧所受的风力 或地震带来的冲击。 在这个特定的例子中, 这些向下压的力 作用于蓝色区域, 它们是受到挤压后向下的压力。 黄色区域承受的是拉力, 是往结构外拉的张力。 当我们合起来看它们时, 我们能看到这些力是如何通过 这个简单的框架向地面移动的, 就像一个流动的模型。
In fact, when we use what's called a structural stress plot, you can see that the form is very natural in its character. But as I said, we build things out of boxes, and when we overlap in our example, a boxy structure of wood, for example, we see these areas in red which really are unnecessary. There wasted material in the current way we build.
事实上,当我们用到 结构应力分布图, 你会发现结构自然而然产生。 但正如我提到的, 我们总建造方形物体, 应用到这个例子里, 拿方形木结构为例, 我们会发现其实红色区域 没有存在的必要。 我们如今的建造方式 就像这般材料浪费。
In this example, working with our engineers, we actually calculated that this particular example would result in about 27% material waste. Now all buildings are different. It's very hard to make a sort of overall calculation, some buildings are more efficient, some less efficient. But if we multiply this by the amount of building that needs to be built over the next 40 years for humanity, it's an incredible amount of human waste. And poor use of our resources.
在这个例子里, 通过我们工程师的计算, 我们浪费的材料大约达到27%。 现在有各种各样的建筑, 因此很难做全面的统计, 有的相对节约,有的比较浪费。 但如果我们将这个数字 乘以未来40年人类 所需建筑物的数量, 那么我们的浪费数量是不可思议的, 资源的匮乏也将难以想象。
So our goal with Five is how do we use as little resources as possible? And when you use little resources in a building, you lighten the building up, and a lighter building actually means that it weighs less on the ground, and our foundations below the ground can be lighter as well. So less resources equals lighter buildings equals even less resources.
因此我们的第五个目标 是如何尽少损耗资源。 建筑所用的资源越少, 建筑物越轻, 这意味着它在地面上的重量较轻, 地基也因此可以变得更轻。 节约资源意味着建筑变轻, 两者结合意味着进一步的资源节约。
Taking this idea of how Five can use less, we took four existing known solutions and put them together.
这告诉了我们减少资源损耗的方法, 我们把四种已知方案相结合。
The first is we take those plant fibers I described and that can come from trees, that can come from plants, grass, bamboo. It can come from waste wood products. It can come from clearing the understory of a forest to make it less likely for forest fire in places like California. We take those fibers and combine them with other organic binders and lignin in order to sort of create a solid product.
第一,我们利用植物纤维, 既可以来自树木、 庄稼、草地、竹子, 也可以来自废弃木品, 或林下植物的弃枝, 使加州等地减少 发生森林火灾的可能性。 我们用有机粘合剂 和木质素粘合那些纤维, 以此创造出牢固的产品。
And then we take these computer models that allow us to really design efficiency into the way we build so we can boil out all that waste.
接着我们使用电脑模型, 把设计效率真正融入到 我们的建筑方式上, 这样我们才能变废为宝。
And then finally, we're going to use custom robotics. That means that every part of a building, rather than being cookie cutter and the same and wasteful, could be just as much material as needed and no more in order to make the building safe.
最后,我们会用到定制机器人。 这意味着建筑的每一处细节, 与其整齐划一地分割,产生浪费, 不如按需用尽 每一寸材料,杜绝浪费, 以此建造安全的建筑。
Together, that makes something that looks like this. And again, this is an example. The flat top is flat because we walk on floors, but underneath the building looks more organic in its shape, and as you can see, these beams and columns feel a little bit more like branches and more like what we see in nature.
综上所述,我们的成果将如图所示。 这仅仅是一个例子。 平顶没有坡度, 因为我们要在地面上走, 但是它的内部形态看起来更加有机, 你可以看到,这些梁和柱 看上去更接近树枝, 更接近我们在大自然里看到的景象。
As we zoom in even further, we start to see how it's actually composed. And you may think in your mind: is this fiberboard? Is this particleboard, things you’ve seen before? Well, actually what we're talking about is a very microscopic layering of these plant fibers that are just a millimeter long. By laying them together and cross-laminating them across each other, we can customize the way, based again on a structural model, exactly how the composition of each piece of the material works in order to make it as efficient as possible. We combine it with these organic polymers and lignin and ultimately make this material as strong, dense, and it behaves much like a tree would.
我们再进一步放大来看, 我们能看到它们的组成部分。 你可能会问:这是纤维板吗? 还是我们之前熟知的刨花板? 我们其实谈论的是 植物纤维中非常细微的分层, 长度仅有一毫米。 层层相叠,交叉压制, 我们可以根据结构模型定制压制方式, 考虑结合每一寸材料的特性, 使其效率达到最高。 有机聚合物和木质素的结合 最终会使材料强度大,密度高, 在表现上更像木材。
Now we do that in another unique way in the way the forming works. Because no pieces of a structure have to be the same and we want to reduce waste, we use robotic forms and fabric forms. The red is fabric that moves in and out and allows each piece of the building to be completely, uniquely customizable. And again, we're using it to reduce the waste of the structure.
成型的方式上, 我们用另一种独特的方法完成。 因为没有任何一种结构是相同的, 我们希望减少浪费, 所以我们使用机器和织物两种方式。 红色的纤维来回抽动, 让建筑每一处细节 都可以完全享受独一无二的定制化。 用这个方法是为了减少结构上的浪费。
Now when we put that all together, it looks like something completely different, something that none of us have seen before. It's not like steel, it's not like concrete and it's not like wood. Instead, in this example, what you see is an entirely plant-based structure. It's healthy and beautiful to be around. Its shapes are not there as decoration. They're there as just structural essentials, and yet they're beautiful. It's safe to be within. It sequesters carbon, so it's part of our solution for climate change.
现在我们把所有东西都放在一起, 塑造出截然不同的物品, 这是我们此前从未见过的。 既不像钢材或水泥, 也不像木材。 取而代之的是 完全依赖植物而来的结构。 这是健康美丽的存在。 它的外形不是基于装饰作用, 它本身就是结构最重要的部分, 但是是美的。 它既能保障安全, 又能起到固碳作用, 是我们应对气候变化 的解决方案之一。
I believe we cannot continue to work with broken systems and try to make them better. We have to imagine something next. We also can't wait for the world's resources to run out before we imagine a future that's different. We are no longer part of an industrial revolution of materials. We are at the beginning of Mother Nature's revolution of materials. And as a result, we can make much more beautiful environments for everyone.
我相信我们无法 继续在一个破碎的系统里 进行更好的尝试。 我们必须拥抱未来的新想法。 不要等到全球资源都耗尽了, 才开始思考一个不一样的未来。 我们的用材不再局限于 工业革命下的产物, 而是开始回归 自然界芸芸众生的力量。 因此,我们可以为自己 打造更优美的环境。
As I walk around the forest of my home and I look up into the trees and imagine what the buildings of the future are, I imagine that they'll use less resources, they'll have less impact. They will still make strong, healthy communities for all of us. But they'll do so more efficiently.
我在家附近的森林里散步时, 抬头看着树木, 想象未来建筑的样子, 我想它们一定会更加节约资源, 让我们不受太多影响。 它们会为我们带来良好健康的社区, 而且更加高效。
All of these ideas are ideas that already exist. There's nothing new here. We have an opportunity to live in a completely biological world. We just have to decide to do so.
我的这些想法其实早已存在, 算不上新鲜事。 我们完全有机会到一个 天然世界里生活, 只是我们需要做出这个决定。
There is a community growing of companies and products of biomaterials that are available, and every day there are new materials introduced into the system. We can and we will solve this combination of human need and the planet's need at the same time. All we need to do is listen to nature and let her teach us how.
生物材料产品及其厂商 如雨后春笋般崛起, 每天都为系统带来新材料。 我们能够满足人类和地球的需求, 互不矛盾。 我们需要做的是,
Thank you.
倾听大自然的声音, 虚心请教大自然。
(Applause)
谢谢大家。