Posted on March 30, 2025
Post categories: Landscape Architecture News Students
In a recent UW Magazine story, landscape architecture student Anna Hatcher (BLA ’26) reflected on how the Salvage Wood Program shaped her experience in the Furniture Studio. Her final project—a handcrafted coffee table built from elm wood felled near Parrington Lawn—embodies the program’s mission to connect sustainability, craft and place.
Thanks to a long-standing partnership with UW Facilities, students like Hatcher gain access to lumber sourced directly from campus trees. Through the Salvage Wood Program, trees removed due to disease, age, or construction are repurposed into usable material instead of becoming mulch. Since its launch in 2009, the initiative has evolved into a robust model for campus sustainability.
A $72,400 grant from the Campus Sustainability Fund (CSF) helped expand the program—funding a new lumber storage shed and supporting the labor needed to process and transport wood.
More than a cost-saving measure—the salvaged wood is often two-thirds less expensive than commercial hardwood—the program fosters a deeper emotional connection between students and the landscape they study and design within.
“Most people don’t get to use wood from the campus—it’s so spiritually beautiful and so emblematic of our time as students here,” said Rae Moore (MArch ’17), Director of the CBE Fabrication Lab.
Explore behind-the-scenes photos from the Fabrication Lab and student furniture projects not shown in the article below.
Read about the program on UW News.
