We are working with the US Forest Service Northern Research Station and the US Forest Products Lab on an initiative that hopes to answer that question positively.
The Baltimore Wood Project web site can found here. It describes the various components of the project, some of which we’ve talked about here previously.
project COUNT, by way of the US Forest Service Urban Forest Inventory and Analysis program, will help us know where, what kind, and how many trees we have so we can estimate resource availability.
Our NGO partner Humanim is creating green jobs in project SALVAGE by deconstructing rather than demolishing vacant buildings and repurposing recovered materials for sale and reuse.
An urban sort yard is a key element of the project, and project SORT will establish a location where wood residues and recovered building materials can be delivered and repurposed.
Under project USE, we’re using pelletized tree bark to filter urban stormwater.
project BUILD’s Baltimore Carbon Design Challenge recognized some amazing net zero carbon row house designs. In phase II of the project, we look to construct one of them.
project LEARN has us using the Green Pattern Book to look for opportunities to put all of the items listed above to play in the landscape on many of Baltimore’s 30,000 vacant and abandoned properties. A design competition is currently underway and winning designs will be funded for installation.
We’ll revisit each of these elements periodically as the project progresses and we work with partners to establish a comprehensive, replicable framework for sustainable urban use and reuse at the city scale.
The Consulting Group at SavATree provides project coordination support to the US Forest Service Northern Research Station for the Baltimore Wood Project.
