Building Assemblages
January 2026
Notes
1
“Firms engaged in producing, processing, marketing or using lumber and lumber products have been able to hedge their risk exposure… Usually, but not always, hedgers transfer unwanted price risk to speculators. Speculators are investors who hope to achieve profits by buying futures when they think prices will rise or by selling futures when they think prices will fall.” From “An Introductory Guide to Random Length Lumber Futures and Options,” CME Group, 2009, ➝.
2
The Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME) first listed lumber futures in 1969 as “Random Length Lumber” futures contracts. Today, the CME trades lumber futures under the designation LBR, one trade unit of which consists of 110,000 board feet of 2x4s at different lengths (from 8 to 20 feet).
3
William Cronon, Nature’s Metropolis: Chicago and the Great West, 1st ed (New York: W. W. Norton, 1991), 178.
4
Cronon, Nature’s Metropolis, 178.
5
“U.S. Finalizes 35% Tariffs on Canadian Softwood Lumber,” Forest Data Network, August 23, 2025, ➝.
6
SOM: Skidmore, Owings, and Merrill, Architecture and Urbanism 1973–1983 (Stuttgart: Verlag Gerd Hatje,1983), 92.
7
“Sale of Weyerhaeuser’s Federal Way Campus Means More Intensive Development,” The Seattle Times, February 9, 2026, ➝.
8
On Weyerhaeuser’s new building: “Weyerhaeuser Headquarters at 200 Occidental,” JTM Construction, ➝.
9
“New Roots for Timber Giant: Weyerhaeuser Headquarters at 200 Occidental,” Mithun, ➝.
10
For the Docomomo campaign: “Weyerhaeuser International Headquarters,” Docomomo US, ➝.
11
Laila Seewang, “Narratives of Sequestration, e-flux Architecture, December 2023, ➝.
© 2026 e-flux and the author