Eloquent timber: Tacit qualities, telling materiality, and the inhabitants’ voice

Global efforts are being made to reduce the climate impact of the building sector. The main focus tends to be on quantifiable achievements. This is also true for how benefits of wooden construction materials are generally communicated. In addition, the expert’s view tends to dominate the discussion, while the user’s perspective receives little attention. This paper argues for also attending to timber’s qualitative aspects, and the inhabitants’ desires, experiences and reference frameworks when designing urban housing. Focusing on wooden construction materials, the paper contrasts the architect’s conceptual design ambitions with the inhabitant’s lived experiences. Three dimensions of materiality turned out to be important to the interviewed architects and inhabitants, which relate to the material’s properties, experiences and values. The knowledge of the material’s properties informs the realisation of its affordances and reliability. How the materiality is experienced and appreciated depends on an interpretation of its atmospheres and what they are associated with. The values assigned to a material also inform which and how properties and experiences are valued and can become part of a corresponding narrative about a building and its materiality. These can be influenced by information, communication and community. Seemingly conflicting design consequences must be balanced when wanting the building’s materiality to simultaneously disclose possible uses, convey atmospheres and pass on narratives. The user should be involved in defining the relevant uses, atmospheres and narratives for each project. Drawing on Pérez-Gómez’ call for architecture to be “built upon love,” the paper delineates these design ambitions as “eloquent”.