The potential that lies within an idea is akin to the potential that lies within a seed. Each undergoes a fight for survival, and if met with the proper conditions, have the power to flourish. Whole Trees Structures has realized the power that lies within both. 

From the humble seed of an idea — to create beautiful structures, working with the ingenious engineering prowess of Mother Nature — Whole Trees has grown a coast-to-coast company that champions sustainable forestry management, carbon sequestration and educating building professions on climate smart solutions.  

Founded in 2007 in the Driftless Region of Wisconsin, Whole Trees Structures began on an off-grid forest farm. The founding team, comprising an architect and a CSA farmer, saw the value of low yield trees on their property and built a stunning home out of structural round timber.

In a recent interview with Kinute, Chelsea Duckworth from Whole Trees sat down to discuss the benefits and beauty of building with structural round timber, woodland stewardship, and how the company has evolved since its inception.

Structural round timber from Whole Trees featured in The Living Desert, designed by GLMV Architecture. Photo by Tara Howard

Q: Can you describe what structural round timber is?

A: Structural round timber (SRT) is un-milled trees that would typically yield, in the timber industry, something like pulp or even wood chips. Structural round timber is 50% stronger than the milled piece of wood they would take out from the middle. Keeping the fibers of the wood intact is a structurally integral part of using structural round timber. Mother Nature is an incredible engineer.

A maple from Seven Islands Land Company, chosen for its unique branching members, is now a 30-foot column in the Children’s Museum of Eau Claire. Courtesy of Whole Trees Structures

At this point, what scope of service does Whole Trees offer?

Our scope of service falls under a couple of core competencies. We supply pre-engineered structural systems of SRT. We’re also supplying beauty trees — any kind of application where people would look for branched members that may just be a decorative item. More importantly, we do architectural, engineering, and consulting services. A lot of people don't know how to source and utilize the types of species that we utilize in our projects. We are the trusted experts in SRT for architectural engineering and consulting. The last scope of service is research and development. 

We’re headquartered in Madison, Wisconsin. The last 10 years has been intensive research with the Forest Products Laboratory, which is also here in Madison. We've had a lot of USDA funded grants and forestry grants that have helped us do a lot of research into the strength and ultimate resiliency of using structural round timber in buildings.

Trusses from Port Blakely’s Winston Creek Carbon Forest. Courtesy of Whole Trees Structures 

Whole Trees states that: 'We believe in the regenerative potential of structural round timber harvested from well managed forests.' What does this regenerative potential look like?

Healthy stewardship for forests means naturally culling trees. Removing some of the smaller trees, invasive species or [trees] particularly difficult to manage in the stand is important for the health and vitality of the forest. It's allowing the trees that are sequestering carbon to grow bigger, to grow stronger. It's allowing the biodiversity to thrive in a healthy, culled forest. 

Are there any certain features in a tree that are particularly sought after or avoided?

We love using trees with a Y shape in structural applications because they’re strong and they're incredibly beautiful. There's nothing more fun than to walk into a structure that's being held up by a tree and just take that in. MIT recently published an article about how that's the strongest connection in nature. We also like anything that's unique and organic.

The Living Desert Zoo, designed by GLMV Architecture. SRT from Whole Trees Structures. Photo by Tara Howard

We’ve touched on some of the strengths, as far as structural integrity goes … are there any other specific advantages to using structural round timber, or challenges? 

The advantages are almost never ending. Biophilia has been proven to do wonders for psychological health. It's a naturally welcoming environment for children. We actually have just completed a children’s museum in Eau Claire, Wisconsin. It's two-story structural round timber. Our company was chosen specifically for the awe-inspiring biophilia for the children and those that are young at heart. I think using trees in this way is beautiful in ways that are hard to measure.

A challenge perhaps, would be that no two trees are exactly the same. We do have lidar technology and we 3D scan most of our trees that are unique in property. Most of them are reviewed by an engineer, reviewed through the specs and the research that we've done, but it does add an additional layer — making sure that the trees that we select are going to be structurally sound for our projects.

Are you able to do something that does require perfect symmetry?

We can absolutely do things that are uniform in size. The Children’s Museum of Eau Claire had to go through an extensive lathing, peeling, and sanding process. It does add extra work, but we think it's worth it.

The Eau Claire Children’s Museum in progress. Trusses from Port Blakely’s Winston Creek Carbon Forest, Maple columns from Seven Islands Land Company. Courtesy of Whole Trees Structures 

Tell me about some of the other projects that Whole Trees has been especially proud to be a part of.

That children’s museum in Eau Claire is the feather in our cap right now. It's probably the first two-story structural round timber building in the world. It's not quite complete yet, there's a lot of work that goes into filling a museum with magic after the building has been built, but we're excited for that to open. It's been an incredible joint effort from a lot of parties, definitely a pinnacle in collaboration for us. Some of the trees came from Sheboygan, Wisconsin. They were going to be cut down from the emerald ash borer. They were going to be destroyed and we were able to save them and put them into the structure. All the trusses were donated by our partner company, the Port Blakely Carbon Forest. Additionally, our partners on the East Coast have [donated] a lot of maple trees from Seven Islands Land Company.

Another project would be the Living Desert Zoo in California. We've recently gotten some images back of a completely redesigned rhino savanna. We’ve found that a lot of aquariums and zoo communities are champions for the kind of carbon sequestration and healthy forestry that we're trying to champion.

Can you tell me a little bit more about the carbon forest and what that means?

Winston Creek is the carbon forest owned and managed by the Port Blakely teams. What that means is instead of cutting down trees at the industry average, they have voluntarily committed to keeping trees in their forests for longer rotations. By keeping them bigger, we can store more carbon. Using those trees is such a structural powerhouse in the buildings — beautiful trees and a really important climate smart option for structural integrity.

Measuring a tree in Port Blakely’s Winston Creek Carbon Forest. Courtesy of Whole Trees Structures

Whole Trees is passionate about education in the construction sector. Can you tell me about the company's involvement with educating other industry professionals about the benefits of using structural round timber?

We are very passionate about providing continuing education credits to designers [and] architects because our material is not one that is widely known or utilized within the mass timber industry. A lot of architects are still leaning into a mass timber movement for climate change. We've found that a lot of people are inspired by our product and our message, but sometimes we just need them to be in the right place at the right time to hear it. We have certified courses where we can come into firms and spend 45 minutes to an hour explaining the structural biophilic benefits of using structural round timber. It's a forward approach on our behalf, but we find it's important to educate our communities.

The Rhino Savannah in the Living Desert Zoo, designed by GLMV Architecture. Photo by Tara Howard

Whole Trees has evolved in a variety of ways since its inception. Can you talk about that evolvement?

We've grown coast to coast. We have extensive partnership networks now. We’ve found regional partnerships to help us build the structures that we design, which has also been successful in keeping circularity within a sustainable network. It keeps the business within those local communities where the structures will eventually live. We're putting our money where our mouth is by supporting those forestry partners that are committed to climate change and carbon smart forestry.