Category Archives: Wood, Paper & Green Building

It has survived fire and flood, but it’s the ravages of time that threaten to finally topple Victoria’s longest timber trestle rail bridge. “It’s now or never,” says May Leatch, one of the principal organisers of a campaign to save the historic 770-metre bridge that ushers travellers into Orbost, four-and-a-half hours’ drive east of Melbourne. “It’s reaching the point where if we don’t do something to preserve this structure it will soon be too late to save it.”  In December, the campaign group Save the Snowy River Rail Bridge hung a huge banner from its upper planks, just in time for the annual influx of tourists drawn by the beaches and excellent fishing of nearby Marlo, where the Snowy meets the sea. The office they set up in a dilapidated storefront in the main street of town – its walls covered with photos, clippings and a mural painted by a local artist – has had plenty of visitors too. But much of the support has come from out-of-towners.

Petrochemical-based polystyrene foam is everywhere, and used for many different applications. It’s hard to imagine something replacing it, but in the very near future we might see wood-based foam become the norm. Environmentally-friendly, wood-based foam is poised to be used for many of the different applications that polystyrene-based foam is being used for, namely thermal insulation, sound absorption and packaging. Wood foam is very sustainable because it consists entirely of wood fibres, without any additives like resins, binders or glue involved. Its strength comes from the wood fibre’s own bonding forces. …It’s also a renewable resource. The wood used can come from anything from large trees to small-twigs. …Wood foam is being pioneered by Fraunhofer Institute for Wood Research in Braunschweig, Germany, which first came out with a product in 20014. 

“Squeezed middle” affordable co-housing, wood prefabricated construction, and Bioregional: How many buttons can one project push? There are many green building concepts and certification systems out there, but One Planet Living has always been one of the most interesting. It is not a checklist like LEED or a set of data points like Passivhaus, but a holistic look at how you live, showing that they are all connected. …And we are really just getting started, because all of this is designed by Waugh Thistleton Architects. Bioregional has always pushed the envelope with their architectural choices, starting with Bill Dunster at BedZed and going on to the late great Will Alsop for their big Quintain project. Waugh Thistleton are certainly cutting edge and are this writer’s favourite British architects, but they are also more restrained and these buildings are far more conservative, and the heating systems are more likely to work.

Some of Australia’s biggest building materials companies are stepping up pressure for an “urgent” review of minimum construction standards in the wake of a blaze that ripped through a high-rise tower in Melbourne’s CBD this week. About 200 residents had to be evacuated after fast-moving flames raced up combustible cladding on the side of the 41-floor apartment complex on Spencer Street, Neo200, about 5.30am on Monday. The building was constructed with the same sort of cladding that ignited at London’s Grenfell Tower in 2017 and killed 72 people. This comes as Victoria’s Planning Minister Dick Wynne calls for a nationwide ban of combustible cladding. At the Building Minister’s Forum in Hobart on Friday, Mr Wynne will push for states, territories and the Federal government to join together to ban aluminium composite cladding.

Journalists from all over the world attended the curtain-raiser of LIGNA at the Preview press conference held in Hannover to get a sneak peek …LIGNA. 30 exhibitors were present at the Preview to give exciting insights to the journalists. …“From 27 to 31 May 2019, exhibitors from over 50 countries will gather here at the Hannover Exhibition Center to showcase state-of-the-art processing solutions, applications and concepts for the entire forestry & wood industry. The presence of all the world’s leading technology providers will make Hannover the global hotspot for the wood-based industries during those five days. No other fair compares in terms of international appeal”, asserted Dr. Andreas Gruchow, Managing Board member at Deutsche Messe, during the LIGNA Preview press conference. …LIGNA 2019 has three focus themes: “Integrated Woodworking – Customized Solutions”, “Smart Surface Technology# and “Access to Resources and Technology”. The latter is also the keynote theme of the Wood Industry Summit.

Rochelle Payne

Leading New Zealand green buildings expert Rochelle Payne (Ade) has taken an equity share in healthy homes technology start-up Tether because she is excited by the technology’s ability to completely transform how green buildings are constructed. Payne, an accredited professional in LEED, BREEAM, Green Star NZ and Homestar, as well as being a Passive House Consultant, says Tether has the potential to completely transform how homes are built because it goes beyond design to measure in real-time what happens when humans occupy a space. The Tether EnviroQ is a battery (or mains) powered indoor environmental quality monitoring system for housing, schools and work environments that is designed to ensure quality living, learning and working conditions all year round.

SINGAPORE – Seven environmental non-government organizations, including the Rainforest Action Network, have accused Tokyo 2020 Olympic organizers of failing to end the use of timber associated with rainforest destruction and human rights abuses. In a statement, the NGOs said they had been left “deeply disappointed” by a recent revision of Tokyo 2020’s timber sourcing policy. Games organizers announced amendments to their previous policy on Jan. 18. …The key principles of Tokyo 2020’s Sustainable Sourcing Code center on the origin of products used in preparation for the Olympics. …However, the Rainforest Action Network alleged at least 134,400 sheets of tropical plywood, sourced from rainforests in Malaysia and Indonesia have been used in the construction of Tokyo 2020 Olympic venues. Tokyo 2020 organizers deny that, say their sourcing protocol has improved and that they are leading approaches to sustainability in Japan. 

The Australian Building Codes Board released the preview version of the 2019 National Construction Code that increases the range of buildings, up to an effective height of 25m, in which fire-protected timber construction systems can be used. The new Classes add schools, retail premises, hospitals and aged care facilities to the previously approved multi- residential, hospitality accommodation and office buildings. This change is based on a successful submission by Forest and Wood Products Australia, which extends a Deemed-to-Satisfy solution that was secured in the 2016 NCC permitting construction in fire-protected timber building systems to an effective height of 25 metres (typically 8 storeys) for Class 2, 3 and 5 buildings. The 2016 change, along with advice from the WoodSolutions Mid-rise Advisory Team has led to a growing number of mid-rise residential projects.

Thomas Lane

The CLT ban could damage investor confidence in modern methods of construction, says Thomas Lane. When the government announced details of its combustible cladding ban at the end of last year, the cross-laminated timber (CLT) industry’s worst fears were confirmed. …At the time architect Anthony Thistleton, whose practice Waugh Thistleton has done so much pioneering work with CLT, warned that a ban could spell the end of the industry in the UK. Nevertheless, the ban went ahead and the CLT sector is trying to adapt. …For buildings over 18m, a hybrid approach could be adopted with CLT used for the internal walls and floors and a non-combustible material, probably steel, for the external structure. …The most damaging aspect of this ban is the impact it could have on innovation more generally, with potentially negative implications for modern methods of construction.

New research shows timber core-wall systems can be used in mid- to high-rise timber buildings to form lift shafts or staircases, making it easier, more flexible and cheaper to build more eco-friendly buildings. University of Canterbury engineering doctoral candidate Justin Brown is guiding future timber core-wall design with his research, paving the way for eco-friendly, mid- to high-rise buildings. …”We’re seeing a lot of hybrid concrete-timber and steel-timber buildings that still rely on concrete or steel cores to resist seismic forces. I’m exploring whether that part of the building could be replaced with a timber solution and to what height this is practicable and economical.” …Currently, there are no design tools and minimal research available to help engineers design timber cores. Brown is conducting a large-scale test of cross-laminated timber (CLT) core-walls.

Proponents of cross-laminated timber were up in arms when the government announced its plans to ban combustible materials from the external walls of high-rise buildings. …Four months on, though, and the nascent CLT industry is in fight-back mode, determined to make the point that reports of its death have been greatly exaggerated. But it is up against a degree of understandable post-Grenfell client nervousness about using what is undeniably a combustible material, and lobbying from other parts of the industry determined to highlight concerns. …According to Nic Crawley… only a “pretty small proportion” would have been affected by the government’s combustibles ban. …Potentially more serious than that, however, are developers’ perceptions of how insurers and real-world home-buyers view the product.

As part of a competition beginning in May 2018, Tengbom has unveiled their proposal for a new tech beacon in Växsjö, Sweden. Commissioned by Växjö city and clients Castellum and Visma, ‘WeXO’ will form a vital component of the city’s growing IT infrastructure and act as a physical lure for attracting businesses and startups to the area. The brief stipulated a design that focuses on the wellbeing of its users, materials and energy usage, and overall sustainability of the building. …The City of Växjö has deep connections with the Swedish timber industry, therefore the architects used natural, sustainable timber resources from the local area to reflect this. Its cedar shingle façade tonally references the brick buildings in the vicinity, while the rounded corners of its tower soften its impression on the skyline.

Timber frames, for so long limited to the low-rise residential sector, have begun to break into commercial and higher-rise uses, thanks to technological breakthroughs. What does the future hold? For more than 100 years steel and concrete have been the default structural frame material for tall buildings. Accordingly, while Western society has embraced wooden buildings across various typologies, the idea of a wooden high-rise or even mid-rise building has been something of an oxymoron, an impossibility from the realms of eco-extremism and fantasy fiction. …But thanks to remarkable recent advances in the technological capabilities of wood, largely focused in the areas of engineered timber and beam-and-post structural frames in particular, all these preconceptions could be about to change. …Arguably its chief technical asset is its lightweight construction. …Another clear advantage for timber buildings – in a low- or high-rise context – is that they are a sustainable, low-carbon alternative to steel and concrete frames.

Richard Whitfield

Traditionally most of the human built environment was made of stone or wood, but nowadays reinforced concrete is one of the world’s most commonly used construction materials. This trend needs to be reversed if we are to reduce climate change, and I would like to see much more wood used as structural, insulative and decorative elements in future Macau buildings. …In contrast to concrete and steel, wood is a sustainable and renewable natural resource that is effectively carbon neutral. Plants absorb carbon from the environment to grow and this carbon is trapped within wood that is used in buildings. …Governments in Finland, Canada, the Netherlands, New Zealand and Tasmania have proclaimed Wood Encouragement Policies and I would really like to see something similar in Macau. It is yet another way we could promote our environmental credentials, lead the technological development of the region and nurture a regionally competitive local engineering consulting industry.