"Roaming through the deserted inner city areas, the quantity and height of Tree of Heaven specimens functions as a signifier for how long a place might have been abandoned," say the Workshop's founders.
"Commonly disregarded as a weed better to be extinguished, we look at it as a post-industrial resource, and take advantage of its ubiquity. Since the tree is growing very fast, the wood is of poor quality by conventional standards but processable if correctly cured. We actually like the unpredictability of the material and work with it instead against it."
A tenacious survivor, the Tree of Heaven may hold onto life so fiercely because it is so short-lived: Few individuals make it past their 50th birthday.
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