The Words on Wood podcast from AHEC and Disegno returns for a fourth season.

(ph: Petr Krejci Photography)

Delving deep into the world of wood and featuring unexpected and timely topics from across forestry, architecture and design, the award-winning podcast Words on Wood has returned for a fourth season. A collaboration between the American Hardwood Export Council (AHEC) and Disegno, the podcast launched in 2021 as an upfront and wide-ranging end-to-end exploration of all things wood-related, from forestry and processing to design and disposal.

Venturing into the world’s forests, timber production sites, and design and architecture studios, the podcast examines how multiple industries intersect through a single material. Each episode is structured around interviews with leading architects, designers, educators, manufacturers, and forestry professionals who live among and care for trees on a day-to-day basis.

(ph: Uxio de Vila)

Released on 14 December, the fourth season opens with an in-depth exploration of an often-overlooked and misunderstood timber product: veneer. Featuring contemporary designers Jorge Penadés and Rio Kobayashi, as well as Cathy Lynn Danzer of timber manufacturer Danzer, the first episode dives beneath the surface to explore the design potential of veneer and to examine how a new generation of experimental practitioners are pushing it in intriguing and playful new directions.

(ph: Fiona Susanto)

Returning to the classroom, the season’s second episode considers the gaps in architectural education when it comes to wood. Although timber is a relatively common building material today, each species offers different properties, which many architects have little or no opportunity to learn about in their training. Educators Kenn Busch, Hanif Kara and Izaskun Chinchilla Moreno come together to discuss how to develop more rigorous timber curriculums.

Building on previous seasons’ ‘Tree Shorts’, the new Words on Wood season also sees the introduction of new, bite-sized episodes ‘Making Shorts’, which shines a light on different techniques for designing and building with timber. Each mini-episode focuses on different production techniques for working with timber, providing insightful case studies through interviews with designers on the processes behind specific projects.

(ph: Uxío de Vila)

The first Making Short of the season ventures to Australia to shine a light on CNC milling, tracing its connections to traditional hand-carving methods. Designer Trent Jansen is joined by First Nations woodworkers and artists Tanya Singer and Errol Evans, to explain how they employed high-tech milling machines to create a series of sculptural furniture that tells stories about the climate crisis.

Other season-four highlights include designer Anna Maria Øfstedal Eng speaking about creating furniture with a chainsaw, and Inma Bermudez and Moritz Krefter reflecting on how making by hand opens up possibilities for working with waste timber.

Contact Details
Words on Wood is available to stream via Apple, Spotify, and all other major podcast services. For more information about AHEC, please click here.