CORE Timber is rethinking how buildings get built, sourcing wood from regeneratively managed regional forests and using robotically fabricated mass timber structural components to turn construction into a climate solution.

The building sector is one of the largest sources of carbon emissions globally while forests, best positioned to offset that damage, continue to be undervalued by construction markets and degraded through exploitation, mismanagement, and neglect. CORE Timber seeks to create new synergies between forest restoration efforts and construction demand, using robotically fabricated mass timber structural components sourced from mixed-species forests in the northeastern United States and harvested through regenerative forest management practices to substitute biomaterials for emissions intensive materials like steel and concrete. 

By bringing together forestry scientists, engineers, architects, and industrial ecologists, the team is designing, testing, and piloting these components in real buildings to demonstrate reduced embodied carbon, long-term urban carbon storage, and construction viability. Wood-based building materials and assemblies that actively support forest restoration rather than undermining it will create climate benefits on both ends of the construction supply chain while strengthening rural and urban economies along the way.

For Stuart DeCew, Director of the Planetary Solutions Impact Accelerator, the team's range is the whole point. "Alan, Andy and the CORE Timber team are architects and builders at heart... they are scientists, testing and pivoting from each experiment... and they are ecologists who see the full potential and impacts on a region and system," he says. "If you want to revolutionize the construction industry, grow a local economy, and protect our shared natural resources, you need all three."

CORE Timber is a 2026 Yale Planetary Solutions Grant Project awardee and part of the Planetary Solutions Impact Accelerator.