Wood is already the most adaptive of all building materials because amateurs are comfortable messing with it. Easy disassembly would help even more. When stud walls were first invented in Chicago around 1833, the technique was call “balloon frame” derisively because it looked so weak and ephemeral. It wasn’t weak at all, but it was relatively ephemeral, certainly when compared to the old timber frame buildings with their massive posts, beams, and rafters fastened together with clever joints and wood pegs. Timber frame was the original design-for-disassembly building material—just knock out the
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