FALLEN TREES

An Idea Takes Root

As a graduate student, Spears was a crew member at the School of Architecture's Fablab. Mark Kutney, a conservator for the University, gave a guest lecture on wood identification for Fablab crew during Spring 2019, which Spears attended. Their discussion turned to the number of logs on Observatory Hill going unused, eventually leading Spears to successfully apply for funding to build a wood kiln for milling.

That UVA Sustainability Green Initiative Funding Tomorrow (G.I.F.T.) grant, supported in part by the Public Mission Fund of the Class of ’72, allowed Spears and Victorio to build a passive solar kiln to dry milled lumber through the fall and spring of 2020. That laid the foundation for UVA Sawmilling, which is also supported by the Jefferson Trust.

UVA Sawmilling engages students from across Grounds and in the community by providing support, advice, and—of course—milled wood for potential material research, student projects, or fabrication of furnishings and other features for campus buildings and outdoor spaces.

One notable student project emerged from UVA Sawmilling’s inaugural Mill to Build competition, which proposed the design and fabrication of an installation to serve as the centerpiece of an outdoor education space. The winning design project, titled “AID: Arboreal Informed Design,” still stands in front of the Architecture School, providing protected seating that encourages engagement and community on the north terrace of Campbell Hall. The project used a waste-efficient approach to generating standardized lumber, called “wedge sawing,” that maintains visual links to trees’ previous life cycle stages—the age-rings we’re familiar with. The curved walls constructed from those wedges mimic the familiar serpentine brick walls found elsewhere on Grounds, underscoring an awareness of both the past and the future.

Some UVA Sawmilling projects emerged when they were approached by areas of the University with specific needs, and Spears and his team continue to build on those relationships. Morven Farm, UVA’s land-based sustainability lab—a living landscape classroom, laboratory and sanctuary—has been the lucky recipient of several benches used to manage the produce Morven Farm grows and boxes for their community supported agriculture (CSA) clients who purchase subscriptions and receive fresh local vegetables from the farm. The student garden on Grounds has also benefited from UVA Sawmilling projects, and the Architecture School boasts many unique pieces of furniture—including circular tables from a Siberian Elm that grew across the street in front of the chemical engineering building.

A Second Life: From Trunk to Tables

“Siberian elm is resistant to Dutch elm disease, which has wiped out most of the elms from the urban canopies,” Spears explained. When architecture students saw the historic tree being cut down across the street, they took a quick video and notified Spears. He then tracked down the tree company and ensured that the elm was taken to Observatory Hill for milling. Now, part of what Spears described as its “incredible trunk” lives on in the form of cookie tables—cross-sectioned slices of the great trunk.

“A group of us worked together to make those tables,” Spears said. “It was an excellent opportunity to engage about 15 or 20 students and walk them through the whole process from start to finish.” One of those students was a chemical engineering major who was able to purchase a slab of that familiar Siberian elm for his own projects. “I can imagine for him that having a slice of this tree that’s been around for 100 years outside the building where he spent most of his third and fourth year is really cool,” Spears reflected. “It’s amazing to have the opportunity to provide those kinds of moments for people.”

Thanks to UVA Sawmilling, such slices of UVA history—as well as slabs from the historic Downtown Mall—are now available for public sale in addition to being used for University-related projects.

Not all of UVA Sawmilling’s work is confined to the University, and Spears and Victorio have strived since the beginning to get the word out about their eco-initiative. “We’ve worked together a lot to say ‘we exist,’ ‘come find us, please know about us,’” Spears said. “At times that’s been a pretty significantly uphill battle.”

The challenge notwithstanding, UVA Sawmilling has created an admirable network of community partners. They’ve consulted on another solar kiln built entirely by students at a local Charlottesville high school and worked alongside a design build studio to mill ash trees brought down in Mint Springs Park in Crozet. They are also frequent partners of the Virginia Department of Forestry during high school career days, helping to mill trees damaged by the emerald ash borer, an invasive beetle that feeds on the ash tree species.

Their research is one more gift to the University and the environment. The end goal of the Climate Futures grant is to offer the community and the region peer-reviewed, data-analysis-backed literature that speaks very specifically to the industry, researchers, and to the University.

“We’ll be able to leave UVA a set of really detailed blueprints for a timber-framed structure, a compilation of best practices, cost benefit analysis, data and structural analysis that we can also push to journals interested in wood drying science,” Spears said. “What is it like to dry wood in a solar kiln long term? What does that look like—and what does that look like in our region? There are many levels of impact to that research.”

Spreading the Word About Wood

Though the scope of their work is large, UVA Sawmilling’s staff is small, but growing. In addition to Spears and Victorio, they have employees conducting research, overseeing build projects, building a social media presence, and preparing and organizing the wood on Observatory Hill. They also have a certified arborist who offers tree walks to anyone interested in learning more about what’s growing in the canopy around Charlottesville and engaging with the environment.

“Part of the arborist’s role is helping to close out the whole life cycle we’re engaged in and investigating what we’re doing on Grounds—what we have here and what we plant,” Spears explained. “Cutting logs all day might seem like a strange offshoot from landscape architecture, but I see this as one point of a really big circle, which is talking about what we’re planting and why, knowing that millions and millions of trees come out of cities and suburban environments all the time. If we know what they might be destined for, then the question of why we’re planting what we plant and how we’re caring for those plants is absolutely a conversation that landscape architects should be a part of.”

If you ask Spears about his ideas for the future of UVA Sawmilling, he reflects on his own experiences and his desire to expand and get even more students involved through internships, research opportunities, and team leadership positions.

“It was such an incredible journey to go from having tinkered with a little bit of woodworking to coming here to the School of Architecture, working in the wood shop, and learning all that I have,” he said. “Where does the wood come from? What does it mean to use this kind or that kind? What does it mean that the tree looks like this on the outside—what’s that going to do to the wood inside? My learning experience and the opportunities and connections that have opened up to me have been really amazing. I’d like to share that with more people.”

To learn more about UVA Sawmilling or to purchase your own piece of the historic Grounds, visit: https://www.uvasawmilling.com.