Building a city out of wood, painting with seaweed and more uplifting stories

Good morning.

It sounds like the beginning of a fable intended to caution the reader: what happens when you build a city out of wood?

But, as Guardian writer Jonna Dagliden Hunt reports, in Stickla, a former industrial area of south Stockholm that is set to become part of the “largest mass timber project in the world”, the idea is one that is inspiring new ways to think about urban construction.

Once fire safety concerns have been met, wood has many advantages over concrete. “It’s a fantastic working environment – no concrete dust, no silica dust issues. It’s clean and quiet,” said Niklas Häggström, the project area manager at the property developer responsible for the Wood City project, Atrium Ljungberg. Jonna reports that 25 neighbourhoods will cover 25 hectares, with 2,000 homes planned for 2027. You can build twice as quickly using timber rather than concrete: 1,000 sq metres a week.

While chopping down trees doesn’t seem like the best thing for the environment, many believe that managed forestry is beneficial for carbon capture, and the use of visible timber has even been found to help regulate people’s moods.

The Guardian newsletters team

More life-affirming tales can be found below in our recap of all the uplifting stories from this week’s First Edition newsletter …

What did you have planned for your next birthday? Going to your favourite restaurant? Trying something new?

Either way, Don Pettit probably has you beat. The now 70-year-old spent his birthday yesterday hurtling from space through the Earth’s atmosphere at hundreds of miles an hour in a tiny hunk of metal.

Yes, Nasa’s oldest astronaut celebrated another year as he plonked to the ground in Zhezkazgan, Kazakhstan alongside two Russian cosmonauts after finishing a 220-day shift at the International Space Station.

Commenting on his return, Nasa said in a low-key statement Pettit was “doing well and in the range of what is expected for him following return to Earth”.

Is there an upside to back pain? Rachel Dixon found, if not that, then a simple and affordable change that helped her deal with a herniated disc and the persistent pain she felt each time she sat down. Dixon, who plays basketball, does yoga and cycles when she’s not working as a journalist, tried out a standing desk that adjusted so she could alternate between standing and sitting.

At first she could only answer emails while standing and had to sit for more creative tasks, but soon she was on her feet all day and for all tasks. Exercise, it has been found, is often an effective non-surgical treatment for lower back pain. For Dixon, as she writes, it’s done the trick: “I haven’t put my back out in five years.”

Working with seaweed ink reminded the acclaimed artist Antony Gormley of the “plough mud in West Wittering”, instantly transporting him back to the smell and atmosphere of his childhood.

Gormley is one of 16 artists asked to create ocean-inspired artworks using ink made from kelp grown in the waters off the island of Skye to raise money for ocean conservation. The project clearly held great emotional resonance for Gormley who spoke of how he feels most alive “when I am in the embrace of seawater” and his belief that the oceans will endure the devastation humanity is wreaking on them and continue to nurture life on earth.

The art created from the Art for Your Oceans project will be sold to raise money for WWF ocean conservation projects in the UK and beyond.

Slow-roasted pork with pearl barley and mushrooms. Rye pancakes with salmon, cream cheese and avocado. Beetroot tartare with horseradish and rye toasts, and a spelt side salad.

Rachel Dixon reports not from some trendy new Soho joint, but from a Denmark train company canteen, as she explores how the country transformed its population’s diet for the better through the power of wholegrains.

The phrase, “Make Do and Mend”, first launched as a government resource-saving campaign in 1942, has come to symbolise the post-war generation’s frugal mentality and aversion to waste.

Fast forward to 2025 and the mending-not-spending mantle has been taken up by Fashion Revolution, a non-profit social enterprise, which is encouraging people across the world to attend one of a network of Mend in Public Day community classes to learn mending, stitching and upcycling skills.

Unlike the post-war years, we now live in an era of vast overconsumption where it can now be cheaper to buy a new piece of clothing than to dry-clean an old one. The organisation argues that while the problems of fast fashion are global, solutions can be local and that participants should see learning to mend their clothing as an act of revolution and defiance.