I can't tell you the number of times
I've seen people stop in their tracks,
walk up to the structure, walk around the
structure, step back and then realize
that this thing of beauty that they're
experiencing is made out of a material
that they previously thought you could
not do anything with.
So while Albizia is a beautiful tree if you look at it --
it has this tropical but also somehow African look to it.
It has this wide crown, these
beautiful little leaves that flicker in the wind,
It is probably one of the most
problematic tree species on our islands.
Albizia was introduced in 1917 as part
of the early reforestation efforts.
At that time you know with fire and
ranching and cattle and logging
our watersheds were largely denuded of all trees.
So in Hawaii they're the fastest growing tree on the planet.
They'll do upwards of 15 feet per year.
It's way faster than they grow in their native
range which is Papua New Guinea and Indonesia area.
Due to their rapid growth
rate, they are prone to what's called
sudden limb shear. And that's where with
no apparent cause a tree can drop
incredibly immense limbs destroying
whatever is underneath it.
When I heard about the Lyon Arboretum
taking down a bunch of big, invasive trees,
the most interesting part about it all was that none of it was going to be used.
I went there essentially just to observe and to document the removal.
I walked up literally witnessing these giant Albizia trees as they were coming down.
At the time I had little knowledge of the tree.
People were saying that it couldn't be built
with, but something greater was telling me to try it.
Before Jerry called about this project
I'd heard of Albizia trees.
Because they kept falling down -- that gives one the impression the wood is weak
but that's not necessarily true because the
way they fell was that their root system failed.
And that is a characteristic of a fast-growing tree: is that it doesn't develop a very good root system
So it didn't really surprise me when we tested it --
the bending capacity, the shear
capacity, the compressive strength, and
all of those tests were comparable with
Douglas fir
which is the common construction material here in Hawai'i.
The Albizia Project is not just about the tree.
It's about a systems way of
thinking toward regenerative design.
When we change the way we source our building
materials, we can go from the exploitation of our planet
to the restoration of our native ecosystems.
I've heard the mantra that design can solve our problems
and I think that the highest potential for the role of an
architect is to help reveal what is already there
and that's what I've observed in working with the architect on this particular project.
Through this process of directed inquiry
and through some really deep listening and observation
a very elegant solution has revealed itself.
