When we talk about building with wood, then we do not talk only about a material, but rather about a new social model, about the dawn of a technologically, ecologically, socially and aesthetically transformed society.

We have caused, naively or not, a catastrophe of planetary scale. A series of invisible chemical elements, by-products of the productive processes, which support our way of life, have accumulated in the atmosphere of our planet. They have, one molecule after the other, brought the dynamic system of our climate to a point, where a potential radical not to say catastrophic turn lies ahead.

Building and living will have to be different, nothing less than a revolution in the construction sector is required. Wood and timber construction is one of the important lines in this new future. The turning point at which we have arrived is nothing less than a threshold to a new era, that must follow new paradigms. New paradigms, which originate predominantly from the digital and ecological revolutions taking place today.

To sustain the discourse about this important mission, Stiftung Baukultur Thüringen has initiated the project ‘Woodland’, a project that pursues important outcomes of ‘Plattform Wohndebatte’ and develops a programme and scenario in which Thuringia becomes a laboratory en plein air, where new innovations are made and applied as well as good habits remembered.

Thuringia has everything, that is required to become a model region for the entry into the post-fossil age, where a new relation between man and nature could be experimented in an epochal moment. Today in the age of Anthropocene mankind is able not only of changing the world but capable of shaking the very foundations of the planet. This also implies the possibility of changing our path, of entering into a beneficial relation with the environment we call home.

Woodland tries to section what can be done and reveals the most promising areas. For the sector of architecture and engineering this means to look at renewable materials and renewable energies, to try to operate in new economic systems such as by applying the concept of circular economy, to foster decentralised structures and an inclusive society.

Part of the project Woodland are the platform ‘Holzbau-Allianz’, a series of interviews through and around the whole wood cycle, the different formats, which were developed, such as multiple conferences and workshops dedicated to the topic and last but not least the two noteworthy competitions ‘XS Ferienhäuser’ and ‘Das100’, which both address the issues above in a comprehensive way and are true models to follow in order to raise to what lies ahead.