Category Archives: Wood, Paper & Green Building

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Wood, Paper & Green Building

Amid tariff dustup, RONA pivots to Canadian-made goods.

The HBS Dealer
March 10, 2025
Category: Wood, Paper & Green Building
Region: Canada

Hard-nosed tariffs imposed on Canadian goods may have been postponed until April 2, but RONA, one of Canada’s largest hardware and home improvement retailers, is making a play for more locally sourced products. The company says it will be highlighting over 6,500 Canadian-made products and will “make a concerted effort” to promote these items in RONA+ and RONA stores. The company, which has over 425 corporate and affiliate stores across Canada, says it’s responding to a growing demand from consumers and contractors who want to prioritize local products. “We’ve always had a strong selection of Canadian-made products. In fact, less than 10 percent of our supply comes directly from the United States. The challenge was primarily about making these products more visible.

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Canada Wood Group’s Market News and Insights March 2025

Canada Wood Group
March 10, 2025
Category: Wood, Paper & Green Building
Region: Canada

These are the headlines you’ll find in this month’s newsletter:

  • Video Interview: Expanding Canadian Wood Markets & Trade Diversification 
  • Shenzhen International Equestrian Center Sets New Benchmark for Timber Construction in China
  • Nail Plate Trusses: Expanding SPF Use in Post & Beam Buildings 
  • Showcasing Canadian Wood Innovation at Japan’s Premier Construction Exhibition 
  • Professional interest in wood construction is growing in China
  • New Durability Evaluation System to Boost Wooden Offices & Commercial Buildings in Japan
  • 2024 Japan Housing Starts Report

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Canada Supports New Wood Construction Technologies in British Columbia

By Natural Resources Canada
Cision Newswire
March 13, 2025
Category: Wood, Paper & Green Building
Region: Canada, Canada West

VANCOUVER, BC — The Honourable Jonathan Wilkinson, Minister of Energy and Natural Resources, announced over $1.5 million in federal support for three projects focusing on the advancement of prefabricated wood construction in the province of British Columbia. These investments are aimed at promoting construction using Canadian wood and driving sustainable innovation in the forestry and construction sectors. The following projects are receiving support through Natural Resources Canada’s  Green Construction through Wood program:

  • $995,000 to the British Columbia Institute of Technology to build the two-storey Robert Bosa Carpentry Pavillion, a “wood first” mass timber building featuring glulam and cross-laminated timber.
  • $300,000 to Prefab Buildings Initiative to create energy-efficient mass timber designs for various types of buildings to … construction faster and more affordable. 
  • $219,870 to Scius Advisory to create an online directory of Canadian companies that specialize in building prefabricated parts, which can be assembled off-site and transported to construction sites. 

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B.C. housing innovators striving for faster, cheaper homes — and happier residents

By Dan Fumano
Vancouver Sun
March 13, 2025
Category: Wood, Paper & Green Building
Region: Canada, Canada West

B.C. has long had some of Canada’s worst housing challenges. The province is home to only about 14 per cent of Canada’s population, yet it has three of the country’s four most expensive rental markets. …It makes sense, then, that British Columbians are producing innovative approaches to approving, designing and building housing. …The lagging productivity of Canadian construction has long been a source of frustration for Peter Moonen, national sustainability manager with the Canadian Wood Council. He believes prefabricated timber components can help B.C. and Canada build more quickly, sustainably, and cost-effectively. …Moonen points to a new facility in the West Kootenay, where a fourth-generation family business called Kalesnikoff, which started as a forestry company in 1939, is producing modular mass timber components for housing. …This kind of modular manufacturing is between 30 and 50 per cent faster than traditional residential construction methods, Kalesnikoff says, and 10 to 20 per cent cheaper.

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18-storey mass timber hotel proposed near Granville Island

By Kenneth Chan
The Daily Hive
March 12, 2025
Category: Wood, Paper & Green Building
Region: Canada, Canada West

A sizeable new hotel project is proposed for a prominent location immediately next to the south end of the Granville Street Bridge, and near the entrance into Granville Island. …Based on the City’s summary of the preliminary project details of the rezoning application, this would be an 18-storey, mass-timber, mixed-use hotel tower. At a height of 175 ft, this tower would slightly exceed the University of British Columbia’s 174-ft-tall Brock Commons Tallwood House student residence building, which was previously the tallest mass-timber building in the world when it was completed in 2017. According to Arno Matis Architecture & Urbanism, this would be North America’s tallest mass-timber hotel building. There would be a total of 168 guest rooms and a total building floor area of over 91,000 sq. ft. 

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Energy efficiency meets novel technologies in emerging housing trends

By Kathy Kerr
Special to the Globe and Mail
March 10, 2025
Category: Wood, Paper & Green Building
Region: Canada, Canada West

Chris Hill

Innovative residential construction practices such as off-site factory building and on-site 3D printing are making inroads in Canada’s massive home-building sector. While they represent a small percentage of overall builds, which are still dominated by traditional stick-framework, these sustainability-focused techniques can add speed and labour-force efficiencies. Vancouver-based off-site construction management firm B Collective specializes in wood-frame panelization, a process that uses factory-built flat panels, which are assembled into houses on location, says company president Chris Hill. Panelization allows the use of a variety of materials, including dense-pack cellulose, a recycled paper fibre that is naturally carbon-storing, Mr. Hill says. Building walls off-site also improves quality control to ensure greater airtightness and waste reduction, he adds… Speedy construction pairs with structural longevity in 3D-printing construction, another innovation that is relatively new to Canadian residential job sites. Nidus 3D, based in the Kingston area, has been using 3D printing to construct residential buildings for three-and-a-half years.

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Manufacturing and Mass Timber Design Strategies

By Ontario WoodWorks, Element5, and WoodSure
Canadian Wood Council
March 14, 2025
Category: Wood, Paper & Green Building
Region: Canada, Canada East

Join us in Toronto on Thursday, May 20! An opportunity to explore the insights into mass timber manufacturing methods and capabilities, a review of design strategies and real-world challenges. Design specifications for CLT and Glulam, along with beam-to-beam connections, will also be reviewed. Anticipate an engaging evening with these two industry leaders. Kevin and Lee look forward to robust conversation and welcome questions from other mass timber enthusiasts (and newbies). Understand the evolution of the mass timber industry with a focus on manufacturing methods and design capabilities. Examine design strategies and real-world challenges in mass timber construction with a focus on practical applications and overcoming industry hurdles. Learn about design specifications for Cross-Laminated Timber (CLT) and Glulam, including beam-to-beam connection techniques for effective integration in mass timber projects.

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Natural Resources Canada invests $6 million in Ontario green construction projects

By Robin MacLennan
Ontario Construction News
March 11, 2025
Category: Wood, Paper & Green Building
Region: Canada, Canada East

The federal government has announced $6 million for four green construction and technology initiatives across Ontario, aimed at promoting the use of low-carbon and processed wood materials. The funding includes more than $900,000 for Assembly Corp. to develop a seismic system and design for a 62-unit, all-wood residential building in Toronto. The eight-storey, mixed-use rental building will serve as a model for future projects across several sites, advancing sustainable construction practices that reduce the environmental impact of the industry… “Investing in Canadian timber not only supports forestry jobs but also helps us meet broader goals such as increasing housing supply and lowering emissions,” said Jonathan Wilkinson, minister of natural resources… The funding comes from Natural Resources Canada’s Green Construction through Wood (GCWood) and Investments in Forest Industry Transformation programs.

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Northern Ontario First Nations create DIY housing kits to tackle housing crisis

By Faith Greco
CBC News
March 10, 2025
Category: Wood, Paper & Green Building
Region: Canada, Canada East

In northern Ontario, First Nations communities have watched modular homes arrive, only to deteriorate and be condemned within two decades. Frustrated with temporary solutions, three First Nations in the Chapleau area launched a non-profit initiative in 2019 to build homes using do-it-yourself building kits named One Bowl… These kits include doors, windows, a prefabricated frame, and thermal logs — a material designed specifically for cold climates. The logs consist of white pine on the exterior and interior, with expanded polystyrene insulation in the middle. Those logs are currently made from white pine harvested in Québec, but One Bowl hopes to soon be producing that material in northern Ontario. ‘Living in a full white pine building itself is gorgeous. The smell is amazing, and it’s definitely a shift over conventional construction technology,; said Candace Larsen, a business development manager for One Bowl.

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Mass timber, 3D printing may be future of military construction for Army, Navy

By C. Todd Lopez
US Army
March 12, 2025
Category: Wood, Paper & Green Building
Region: United States

Army and Navy barracks may one day be 3D printed or built using mass timber construction that involves large wooden structural beams manufactured from smaller lumber… Additive construction — 3D printing buildings — high performance cement and concrete mixes, geosynthetics, mass timber, composite materials, industrialized construction, tension fabric structures and carbon fiber reinforced polymers were all part of the discussion with lawmakers about how the Army and Navy can develop the most cost efficient and resilient military construction projects… In Hampton Roads, Virginia, the Navy is now piloting the use of mass timber, also called cross-laminated timber (CLT)… “Department Of Defense (DOD) has expressly acknowledged the applicability of CLT with the creation of a guide specification,” Hamilton (chief engineer for Naval Facilities Engineering Systems Command) said. “As the CLT construction industry matures, CLT may prove more competitive and could be utilized more broadly in DOD construction.”

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One of the United States’ Largest Cross-Laminated Timber Manufacturing Facilities is Underway in Oregon

PR Newswire
March 11, 2025
Category: Wood, Paper & Green Building
Region: United States

Timberlab Inc. (Timberlab), a subsidiary of Swinerton Incorporated (Swinerton) and leading national provider of holistic mass timber systems, has teamed up with Swinerton Builders, Lindgren Development, LEVER Architecture and other project partners to design and build a 190,000-square-foot world-class cross-laminated timber (CLT) manufacturing facility. This facility will be one of the largest CLT production sites in the United States… The manufacturing facility will be built with glue-laminated timber (GLT) produced at Timberlab’s other Oregon facilities using locally harvested timber.  Timberlab has sourced top-tier equipment for advanced timber and wood processing. Kallesoe is providing a complete CLT processing line, including an automated feeding system, high-speed cross-cut saws and a top-of-the-line finger-jointing system. The facility and its cutting-edge equipment will revolutionize the timber industry by delivering a superior product.

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Leaders at Ironworkers’ IMPACT Conference Focus on Growth Opportunities

By Pam McFarland
Engineering News-Record
March 10, 2025
Category: Wood, Paper & Green Building
Region: United States

Despite a shift in federal government that has left it less friendly to labor unions than the previous administration, the mood at the annual conference of the Ironworkers union and its signatory contractors, held in Orlando, Fla., Feb. 24-26, was upbeat. Major topics included a new mental health and suicide prevention website … and mass timber. …mass timber’s popularity as a sustainable and viable option globally has soared in recent years, due to greater availability of cross-laminated timber (CLT), along with changes to the International Code Council’s standards allowing CLT to be used for taller multistory buildings. Nick Milestone, senior vice president at Mercer Mass Timber, said these factors have contributed to a market expected to grow exponentially in the coming decades. “A great opportunity” for ironworkers, he said. Brandon Brooks, program manager at WoodWorks… said rather than taking away jobs, mass timber projects could provide opportunities. 

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Wildfire victims look to nontraditional materials, methods as a solution to rebuilding homes

By Phillip Palmer
ABC 7 Eye Witness News
March 14, 2025
Category: Wood, Paper & Green Building
Region: United States, US West

LOS ANGELES — Many fire victims are facing a daunting question: How do I rebuild? With what? …Ryan Palos used ICF, Insulation Concrete Forms. Their home is designed and permitted as non-combustible and built using only foam, concrete and rebar. There isn’t much that would identify it as nontraditional, but by eliminating wood from the structure, they also reduced their risk of fire. …Evangeline Iglesias will use Emergent Construction to build her home. Emergent has printed several homes in Redding and even one on the campus of Woodbury University in Burbank and will only require 30 hours to print the walls, which can save up to two months on construction time while offering incredible flexibility. …A home made with concrete is clearly fire resistant, but in Paradise where the Camp Fire destroyed 90% of the town’s homes, a house made with hay is also groundbreaking in its ability to resist fire.

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This startup is creating a global tech platform for recycled wood

By Diana Olick
CNBC
March 17, 2025
Category: Wood, Paper & Green Building
Region: United States, US East

Each year 36 million trees fall due to decay, disease, natural disasters or clearing for new development. The vast majority of those trees are either burned, sent to a landfill or ground up for mulch, which wastes energy and causes carbon emissions. Now, new technology is being used to find, transport and recycle that wood and make it useful once again. Cambium is a startup aiming to disrupt the wood recycling space. Its Baltimore-based researchers are working on new ways to track, treat and transfer old wood into the supply chain. It bills itself as the platform “where timber meets tech.” …Every piece of Cambium’s “carbon smart” wood has a barcode. Scan it, and Cambium’s app will identify what the species is, when it was milled and what its grade is. …Cambium doubled its sales last year, and CEO Ben Christensen said the big growth was on the software side.

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DS+R designs all-electric, fossil fuel–free, mass timber tower at Boston University

By Daniel Jonas Roche
The Architect’s Newspaper
March 13, 2025
Category: Wood, Paper & Green Building
Region: United States, US East

…DS+R is designing a new purpose-built home for the Frederick S. Pardee School for Global Studies at Boston University. Upon completion, the 12-story building will, according to the firm, be the tallest mass timber structure in the northeast United States. The Pardee School, established in 2014, educates students in international relations and public policy. …The school’s “vertical collaboration network” will be broadcast on the building’s facade, wherein large spans of glazing reveal the timber construction inside. …The mass timber structure will be all-electric and fossil fuel-free. Its innovative structural frame is estimated to reduce embodied carbon by 87 percent, in comparison to an initial steel-and-concrete iteration.

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CHYBIK + KRISTOF’s ‘forestry in the forest’ to be czech republic’s largest timber structure

Designboom
March 14, 2025
Category: Wood, Paper & Green Building
Region: International

Amid growing interest in sustainable construction, CHYBIK + KRISTOF is advancing the position of timber architecture in Central Europe. Titled Forestry in the Forest, the project will serve as the new headquarters for the Czech National Forestry in Hradec Králové and become the Czech Republic‘s largest wooden structure in an effort to shift industry norms and position timber as a viable material for large-scale development. The complex is envisioned as a cluster of five elongated timber volumes … connected through a central hall. …Forestry in the Forest’s structure then makes use of a combination of timber construction methods … to demonstrate wood’s capacity to deliver efficient, durable, and engaging design solutions. …‘The walls are constructed in the two-by-four system; the ceilings, horizontal slabs, built-in subcenters and railings are made of CLT panels; and for the large-span structures wooden glued trusses are used,’ says CHYBIK + KRISTOF.

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