A 100-foot-tall tulip poplar tree that towered over Grounds for about 125 years now serves a new purpose. The tree – which was removed as part of the Main Library renovation project – was recently transformed into a table that resides within an outdoor classroom at the School of Architecture’s Campbell Hall.
This transformation – and other similar ones of other historic trees around Grounds – is thanks to a collaboration between Facilities Management teams and UVA Sawmilling, a group started in 2020 by then-graduate students Tim Victorio and Andrew Spears.
Spears, who graduated with a Master of Landscape Architecture degree from the School of Architecture in 2020, first got the idea for his project during a Materials and Culture course with Capital Construction & Renovations Architectural Conservator Mark Kutney and Andrew Johnston, an architecture professor.
“The idea behind UVA Sawmilling is to promote sustainability and education and preservation by making use of trees that have to come down on Grounds,” Spears told UVA Today. “We are focused on making good material available to those within the University community for their needs, whether that be the [Facilities Management] cabinet shop, students and faculty for research projects, set-builds, for picnic tables and benches or for amazing tables like [Main Library poplar] project.”
In 2020, Kutney and Associate Director of Grounds Rich Hopkins and his Landscape Services team worked with Spears to build a solar kiln to dry lumber at the University’s lumber yard on Observatory Hill. Trees to be milled are specially cut in long sections and then transported to the lumber yard where UVA Sawmilling hires sawyers to cut the slabs.
While the Main Library poplar slabs were too large to dry in the solar kiln (they were dried off-site by a contractor), the kiln is used for smaller slabs, such recent ones from a White Oak that graced the East side of the Rotunda and a Siberian Elm that shaded the Chemical Engineering Building for 75 years, respectively. These smaller slabs were sold at auction in the summer of 2022 through the UVA ReUSE Store with proceeds supporting the UVA Sawmilling program.
Facilities Management and UVA Sawmilling continue to work closely to identify trees that are best suited to be milled rather than ground into mulch, ensuring their beauty and utility live on.
