Associate Professor Shane Williamson was featured John Bentley Mays' most recent column in the Globe and Mail entitled: "In architecture, wood is now on the cutting edge."

Mays wrote about Williamson Chong Architects recent Professional Prix de Rome in Architecture award, which will allow the firm — whose principals include Shane Williamson, Betsy Williamson, and Donald Chong — to travel throughout Europe and Asia to learn about the use of wood as a building component. In particular, they hope to learn more about  cross-laminated timber, which is created by stacking small wooden boards (taken from trees in sustainably managed forests) and gluing them together to create an exceptionally strong and versatile product.

“Our interest in wood follows from a real contemporary stream associated with notions of sustainability,” Shane Williamson tells Mays. “To see even the most general charts of the embedded energy of wood, compared to materials such as concrete and steel, is to be immediately [persuaded] that it’s a renewable resource with the lowest carbon footprint -- a really fantastic material.”

Read the full article on the Globe and Mail website.