没有一种建筑类型或材料将使我们能够摆脱气候和脱碳挑战。我们需要重新使用和翻新我们已经拥有的东西，并且当我们建造新的材料时，我们需要与每种材料一起使用最佳的功能，从而创造了在各个转弯处进行优化的混合建筑解决方案。

Timber bamboo is an important underexploited resource that could do much to help.

我们现在专注于如今的木材松树，因为它具有可预测的特性，丰富的（但不是无限）的供应，如果暴露了，可能会很漂亮。存在多种物种和等级。

To work around timber pine’s inherent flaws, engineered wood products such as glulam beams and mass plywood panels often mix timber species and grades. Similarly, veneers and pressed laminates minimize the impact of timber pine board flaws and achieve better use of the fibers.

If we are not careful, however, we will quickly exhaust timber pine faster than we can grow it. With our appetite for more timber products, the not-unlimited supply is shrinking faster than we would like to admit. Forest recovery time after the now-perennial wildfires is measured in decades, and we don’t have a fast-moving fix when that damage is done.

So although wood is good, and responsibly sourced mass timber and timber pine will help our lower-carbon building efforts, they are not enough.

要购买更多的时间，让我们将我们的思维扩展到木松树之外，以包括其他快速生长的纤维，这些纤维更加强，更快，一种称为纤维优化的方法。它意味着使用最佳材料适用于每个负载应用程序，并使用其机械性能最合适的光纤。

Fiber optimization also entails balancing the carbon and other impacts associated with creating and harvesting the fibers.

这意味着，当两种木材在结构上执行相同的作用时，我们理想地希望指定更强壮，更快的物种 - 木竹是自然增长最快的结构纤维之一。

它的高度可以达到100英尺以上，并且可以每年收获，并在第二年恢复。秘密是其草根，每次收获后都不会死，也不需要再生长。随着竹子的根结构的成熟，如果可以使用水和养分来维持它，地上生物量就会增长更快，更有效。

结果，在四到七年中生长的竹纤维量等于在40至60年中生长的木纤维量。

Timber bamboo favors moist, humid areas closer to the equator. The southeast U.S. and many parts of Central America, the northern regions of South America and greater Southeast Asia all have prime bamboo-growing regions and potential. Some fallow cotton and citrus plantations within the U.S. have started experimenting with growing it, but the American market for the material is in its infancy.

如果基于生物的解决方案对于我们未来的建筑环境至关重要，无限需求有限的resources, the faster we move toward growing and using more timber bamboo, the better.

像其他产品一样，木竹需要磨碎并制造成熟悉的形状和形式，然后再将其掺入现代的西式建筑中。与任何工程的“木材”产品一样，它必须通过广泛的结构和安全测试才能满足建筑法规。

但是它的机械性能匹配或通常超过木松树。

一些开创性的公司正在将木竹引入北美市场，但是如果我们要扩大其用途，我们需要对早期采用者和更具创造力，纤维优化的设计的更多支持，这些设计不仅包括木松树。

建筑物produce nearly 40% of all greenhouse gases annually. Given the accelerating signs of climate change, how we create and maintain the built environment is critical to finding solutions for where we go next. We need to accelerate use of fiber= optimized design and timber bamboo—and we don’t have time to waste.

Donald W. Davies, PE, S.E., is president of Seattle-based engineer Magnusson Klemencic Associates.