Still Troubled about Teak
by Lloyd Alter, Toronto on 03.16.07
Gordon M. Grant for The New York Times
We have written before about the evils of virgin teak here, and expressed reservations about reclaimed teak before as well, but damned if I can find it. I think that the reservations were confirmed in the New York Times article on the recycling of old teak buildings into new furniture and floors. Companies like TerraMai are buying up buildings-"As Southeast Asia continues to modernize, many teak-wood homes are being torn down and replaced with Western-style brick or concrete ones." Yet some preservationists worry. From the Times:
Tanet Charoenmuang, the vice president of the Urban Development Institute Foundation in Chiang Mai, Thailand, which advocates for historical preservation in the rapidly modernizing city, is worried that his country is slowly losing its identity, as old teak villas, docks, hotels, tobacco barns and granaries vanish."Houses are sold one after another after another, and, finally, all gone," Dr. Tanet said. "Finally, the culture will be gone, too." Unfortunately, the traditional house that is adapted to the climate and raised to keep cool without air conditioning, is being replaced. "At first, someone may have never thought of selling" a home, he said, but the financial incentive, combined with the growing popularity of Western-style brick and concrete houses with modern conveniences like air-conditioning, has spurred the selling off of teak. The result, Dr. Tanet said, is that "the wooden culture gives way to the concrete."
Richard Humphries/Polaris, for The New York Times
Erika Carpenter of TerraMai says that she only goes after houses and buildings that are going to be demolished anyways, but here is a description of one purchase: Approaching the home in question, one of a row of simple but sturdy wooden structures raised on stilts, she scratched a support beam, sniffing for the sharp, leathery smell of teak. A white-haired woman sitting at a table nearby pointed to garlic drying beneath the raised floor and asked Ms. Carpenter if she had come to buy some. "No," Ms. Carpenter told the old woman in Thai, "I came to buy the house."
After locating the property owner, a middle- aged woman, Ms. Carpenter spoke to her through an interpreter. The owner explained that she had inherited the house from a relative, but did not need it. Her reason for selling to Ms. Carpenter was simple: If the home were put on the local market, the lot would bring a modest sum, but traders in salvaged teak — both local buyers and foreigners like Ms. Carpenter — are willing to pay hundreds of dollars per cubic meter, or more than $50,000 for an entire house.
Many homeowners in Southeast Asia use teak "like a bank," said Philippe Guizol, a researcher who frequently works with the Center for International Forestry Research, a conservation organization based in Indonesia. "If you need cash and you have teak in your floor, you just sell it," Mr. Guizol said."
Richard Humphries/Polaris, for The New York Times
I have blantantly cherry-picked this article to make my point, but the same thing has happened in North America when every barn that we used to admire got torn down to get barnboards for some rec room, and now we have no barns and a lot of tired rec rooms. We are demolishing a cultural heritage to get a cute gazebo or feature wall in our house and we just don't need it. I think that we just have to say no to teak, full stop. ::New York Times
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There's a lot of problems with this....
1) turning to air conditioning, concrete, brick is not ideal for the climate.
2) what are more sustainable materials they can build with?
3) if they want to sell the wood b/c they need money, then wouldn't the buyers be using reclaimed teak and supporting their small economy?
This post seems unfocused.
What do you have a problem with? That traditional Southeast Asian homes are being torn down and replaced with brick/concrete? Are you against this for culture heritage reason or increased energy embodiment/consumption reasons?
Are you against all western consumption of teak? Or against the opulence of western homes?
I'm finding it hard to fault this process from a treehugger standpoint as long as the teak is recycled again if any of those "tired rec rooms" are torn down.
I understand you wanting to keep an old cultural icon alive, however its not for us to say what lives and dies, sometimes you have to just accept that as we progress (whether good or bad) things will be replaced, forgotten about or just completely removed intirely.
If other cultures want to live differently from there past who are we to try and stop them?
Progress is important, it will deffine who we are, where we are going and how we are getting there.
Yes we may loss some things along the way, however hopefully we gain something too.
I would say you’re clueless about life & culture in Southeast Asia.
1 - Old wooden houses are often not cherished, not well maintained, and, most importantly, not a symbol of success nor a source of pride for many.
2 - Most, if not sold, will fall to ruin. In the mean time they usually provide VERY primitive living conditions as they get older (you can dispense with any romantic notions of idyllic old world edens) due to either the inability to maintain, or a lack of desire to do so.
3 - For the masses, old ain't cool, NEW is. That's the facts and lumber not recycled by the West (incl. Japan) will eventually be consumed locally and most likely udes to fill some temporary and immediate need.
4 - Southeast Asians are large in numbers and, comparatively, some of the poorest in the world. Any source of income for them could be lifesaving.
Your conclusion sounds patronizing and colonial.
LA: I suspect that you are right and that I am completely patronizing, I have never been there and you have. nonetheless, I am saddened to see buildings that evolved in accordance with local conditions shipped to America because they are more valuable dead than alive.
We have to learn to live with our environment rather than air condition and change it , These buildings did it very well and are being lost because right now it is cheap to air condition. Soon it will not be.
Pray tell, what exactly did you do to preserve 'every barn that we used to admire'? Did you perhaps buy one, contribute to their upkeep or learn the craft of timber framing so that you could play a hands-on role in their maintennance? After all, with so many hyperbolic concerned citizens such as yourself, there's probably a great market in barn preservation just waiting to be tapped.
Or did you instead decide it was considerably less effort to sit on the sidelines, pissing and moaning while others tried to do something worthwhile?
Lloyd, you live in Toronto...not exactly the market that makes a run on air conditioning year around.
Please go live for 5 years in those houses that you produced phtographs for in the tropical humidity of southeast asia, as-is, just like you see them, then tell me what your problem is with this process.
While some woods like bamboo grow ultra-fast and are rapidly renewable, recycled teak lasts for hundreds of years if it keeps finding new homes, and isn't that the definition of sustainablilty?
I'm not seeing the point of your argument here.
Wow. I can't believe everyone is so hostile to the point being made here. Yes, everyone knows that in developing countries (&, in fact, less affluent rural neighborhoods in the US) NEW is regarded as better than OLD. And, yes, new has conveniences that old doesn't have. So do strip malls and McDonalds. Do you really want to see the whole world turn into the ugliest part of the U.S. because it's a step up. If you've been living here in the US, you know that it's not actually a huge step up and it gets old pretty fast for the people who bought into it once they find themselves stuck in their new economic niche. But, I guess they can just drown their sorrows by going to Walmart.
Those teak buildings, by the way, are a finite resource. What do you think happens once they're all gone? It's not exactly sustainable trade, and now you have a country stuck with a bunch of crappy, non-functional (and ugly) western-style buildings because, as usual, they sold their best, non-replaceable, stuff/culture to us for quick cash and nobody had the foresight to think about the long term situation.
Frankly, I don't think Lloyd's point is at all patronizing and colonial, or confused. Our ability to pay for these objects and materials is driving the their destruction. We do have a role in this, because we're waving dollars in everybody's face. The fact that there are people in the world who need the dollars badly enough to ignore that this is a short term fix with long term consequences doesn't mean that it's a good idea. Maybe it's not something we should participate in.
Alot of people buy reclaimed teak because they believe it has no negative effect on anyone/anything. I think it's totally valid to point out that that's not necessarily the case.