August 22, 2008

Architect Larry McFarland promotes use of wood in sustainable design

VANCOUVER

Vancouver architect Larry McFarland is a wood advocate, and proud of it.

“Wood is always a beautiful material, and it adds a lot of life to any building you use it in,” he says. And what’s better is that the beauty is not just skin deep. Wood is also strong, durable, easy to work with — and a great choice for a sustainable, or green, design.

Larry McFarland Architects designed the award-winning Gulf Islands National Park Reserve operations centre north of Victoria, Canada’s first LEED Platinum building.

“We wanted to build a building that was both sustainable and beautiful, one that did not look like a series of things had been attached to it to fulfil some sustainable objective,” says McFarland. “Integration of the wood into the structure is an inherently sustainable move. That wood can some time in the future be taken down and reused.”

He points to the wood beams in the structure. “The image that when a tree is taken down, it is no longer a renewable resource is really a misunderstanding. The wood in this building is full of sequestered carbon, and that can’t be said for the steel or the concrete.”

McFarland, whose company has been designing institutional, educational and First Nations’ facilities for more than 25 years, sees lots of opportunities to use more wood when building sustainable structures. One of the biggest challenges is helping people understand just how much wood can offer.

“Every product that’s in the store has an incredible amount of marketing material related to it, but when you go to the wood area it’s called lumber and that’s all they are told,” he says.

“There’s greater opportunity to use wood as a finished product within a building and as an integral part of the structure. “

DCN News Services

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