The ultimate in green living is almost here. Think bus shelters, street lamps, and even houses -- all grown from trees. The process of shaping living trees to create objects, referred to as arborsculpture and pooktre, is well known among hobbyists (a simple Web search shows plenty of results for the art form). Now, researchers at Israel's Tel Aviv University are teaming up with eco-living company Plantware to create commercial structures on a larger scale.
We at Plantware are vividly aware of the difficulties that Brad has alluded to and are busy erecting and monitoring proof-of-concept and pilot projects in order to study, prioritize and solve problems that come part and parcel with new technology. By and large, the plethora of tree species on earth have solved problems of pathogens, fire resistance, regrowth and branch shedding, structural integrity and other "problems" that could arise in adapting trees to human habitat. Trees have done this many times over in each seperate environment in which they occur. The difficult task for us - is to choose the correct species for our constructs and to ensure that it is not over represented by its human use in civil engineering.
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