Category Archives: Wood, Paper & Green Building

It’s renewable, strong as steel, astonishingly fireproof – yet it’s easy and quiet to build with. Could timber construction be the future? We step inside the revolutionary new London workplace that everyone wants to touch. …In Shoreditch, east London, stands the Black & White, a new office block that boasts few of the shiny gimmicks of its bloated glass and steel neighbours… But building it used almost 40% less carbon than comparable structures – primarily because it’s made of wood. …“We’re getting a really clear understanding of the biophilic benefits of natural environments, beyond the carbon savings,” says Andrew Waugh of Waugh Thistleton, the architects behind the project. “People sleep better in timber homes, study better in timber schools, heal faster in timber hospitals and have less stress in timber offices.” …in the development industry, form follows finance. Only this time, it’s keen to be seen to be green.

ZGF Architects, along with Barcelona-based firms MIRAG and Double Twist, have designed a net-positive, mass timber center for research on planetary well-being. Located in Barcelona, the Mercat del Peix Research Center will bring together global experts in the experimental sciences, social sciences, and humanities to address challenges related to the future of the planet, including biodiversity loss and climate change economics and governance. In January, the design won a global laboratory design competition that drew 41 entries from 10 countries. …The research center’s mass timber building envelope and mechanical systems aim to reduce embodied and operational carbon, while optimizing the quality of the interior environment. …The research center’s high-performance mass timber building envelope and mechanical systems will significantly reduce both embodied and operational carbon while optimizing the quality of the interior environment. 

The new Timber TED courses provide a comprehensive understanding of timber design and support practical development of vital timber skills, according to the first group of students to graduate. The first full Timber Technology Engineering Design (Timber TED) courses began last year, with students from across the timber supply chain graduating from the 12-week course in December. The Timber TED courses have been developed by the New Model Institute for Technology & Engineering, in partnership with Timber Development UK and Edinburgh Napier University. They are designed to upskill and reskill the built environment professionals of the future to address the climate emergency and have a better understanding of timber’s role in the path to net zero. Students included architects, engineers, project managers and timber frame manufacturers, all of whom wanted to upskills and better their understanding of how to use more timber in their design and building projects.

HANNOVER, Germany — More than 90,000 professional visitors from the woodworking and wood processing sectors are expected to attend LIGNA, the world’s largest trade fair for woodworking and wood processing plants, machinery and tools. Hundreds of vendors spread through seven categories of machinery, plant and technology from across the entire wood industry will be showcasing their wares from May 15 to 19 at the Deutsch Messe in Hanover, Germany. Global market leaders welcome this opportunity to stage live demonstrations of their plant and machinery in operation. Every two years the wood industry has its own season ‒ LIGNA. The show has numerous special formats that go beyond the pure exhibition area. The show features seven categories of products, and three broader themed focus areas: Energy from Wood; Wood Based Panel Production; Machinery for Forestry, roundwood & Sawntimber Production; Machine Components and Automation Technology; Surface Technology; Sawmill Technology; and Tools & Machinery for Custom & Mass Production. 

Construction and the built environment are responsible for approximately 40% of global energy-related CO2 emissions. A significant percentage of this comes from the extraction, processing and energy-intensive manufacturing of building products.  To meet targets for net zero CO2 emissions by 2050, the construction industry must halve carbon emissions each decade, while still meeting the needs of a growing urban population, responding to the increasing demand for new buildings and tackling the urgent requirement to retrofit 29m existing homes in the UK alone to reduce energy consumption. …As it stands, wood is the only sustainable structural material that grows worldwide which can enable substantial decarbonisation of the built environment based on existing business models and proven technology. …Lifecycle assessment studies consistently show that timber products absorb and store more carbon than is emitted through their production – which means timber can actively reduce carbon emissions rather than adding to them on projects.

On December 2-3, Canada Wood China (CW China) organized an inbound mission to Nanjing, the capital of Jiangsu province, to visit traditional and modern wood construction projects. Despite COVID-19 travel restrictions, the mission had 20 participants, including developers, architects, engineers, GLT manufacturers, wood builders and material suppliers. Situated in the Yangtze River Delta region, Nanjing holds a prominent position in Chinese history, having served as the capital of multiple Chinese dynasties and a major center of culture, education, research, politics, economics, transport networks and tourism. As a sophisticated metropolis where the ancient traditions intersect with contemporary culture, Nanjing has an abundance of traditional wood structures, and a growing number of high-quality modern wood buildings. This 2-day mission consisted of several visits to wood project, including: Jiangsu Provincial Rehabilitation Hospital; Jinling Style; and Nanjing Garden Expo Park.

The last three years have seen the world reset its lifestyle buttons in numerous ways, one of which has been a major shift to sustainable living. Driven by a need to find a balance in an increasingly urbanised world which the UN Report predicted will be 68% by 2050, consumers, irrespective of being eco-conscious or not, are seeking to bring nature home. Thus, it is easy to see why architects and real estate developers are constantly coming up with initiatives and contemporary designs that are rooted in biophilic design. Lumber is not only sought out for aesthetics, but has proven to have engineering as well as health benefits. Here is how the versatility of the Canadian Wood is giving it an edge over others: Sustainability quotient; Varied offerings; Durable & resilience; and tech-friendly.

Bressanone, a small town nestled among Italy’s northern mountains, is 15,000 kilometers from the Australian metropolis of Sydney. The prefabricated wooden components traveled around world to Sydney to build Australia’s first sports stadium made entirely of wood. The idea of a wooden stadium was born to create an infrastructure that would be perfectly integrated with the natural park in which it is located. And it answers the ever growing demand from Australia’s largest cities for sustainable infrastructure to develop new ways of living based on green mobility and civil engineering. With this in mind, the Eric Tweedale Stadium, erected within Cumberland’s Granville Park, a vast green area near Sydney, was built using wood. The Italian wood …crossed seas and oceans inside eight containers carrying not just the wood but also the complex structure for the roof that covers the stadium’s 750-seat grandstand, conceived to withstand vibrations and hold up to strong winds.

London studio Waugh Thistleton Architects has unveiled the Black & White Building, a mass-timber office building designed for The Office Group in Shoreditch with a slatted tulipwood facade. The six-storey office building, the “tallest mass-timber office building in central London”, was built from a combination of beech, pine and spruce timber. Constructed from structural timber, they clad the exterior of the in tulipwood timber louvres from the street level to the roof. “The design means that you also get the beauty of the timber internally,” co-founder Andrew Waugh told Dezeen. …Waugh Thistleton Architects constructed the 4,480-square-metre Black & White Building from prefabricated components that were precision-engineered to be slotted together. This means the building, which Waugh describes as “visibly sustainable”, is dismantlable and can be disassembled rather than demolished at the end of its life with its materials reused.

Designboom sat down with Kengo Kuma to talk about his ongoing work for the biophilic, wood-enveloped mixed-use complex ‘Welcome Project’ in Milan. …Layers of wood topping panels of glass windows brush against undivided spaces with tall ceilings. …Serenity surprisingly permeates the cosmopolitan surroundings, and the use of wood throughout the architecture helps with that. …Kengo Kuma puts his faith in the organic properties of wood in architecture. In a city where the use of timber might not be visibly displayed among the steel and glass skyscrapers, along the marble and stone historical sites, that dot the cityscape, Kuma is re-introducing wood to the urban design of Milan.

Timber construction is making headlines across the world with new high-rise projects choosing this popular building material over cement and steel to reduce their carbon footprint and offer a pathway to sustainability. But how can timber construction be sustainable when you have to cut down trees to source the material? …Substitution of carbon-intensive materials such as steel and cement with low embodied carbon materials is one of the strategies being adopted to reduce the industry’s carbon footprint. …By replacing steel and concrete with timber products for instance, embodied carbon can be reduced by up to 75 per cent. However, given the global campaign against deforestation, how will we get the timber for our buildings? …Sustainable timber is timber sourced from sustainably managed and certified forests. …Currently, 26.7 million hectares of native forests and plantations are certified under the Responsible Wood Certification Scheme, and 1.2 million hectares under the FSC.