Category Archives: Wood, Paper & Green Building

…Viscose rayon is used in clothing… It has been touted as eco-friendly because it comes from a renewable resource: trees. But it is also among the products that have driven the destruction of rainforest in Indonesia. The plantations built on the cleared land create a continuous supply of new wood or goods like palm oil, often from a single species of tree. The plantations blend into the surrounding forest. But experts say they also dry out the land and increase the risk of fires as well as destroy the natural habitat of a diverse array of plants and animals. …Deforestation in a place like Indonesia also has broader impacts. An acre of tree farm doesn’t absorb nearly as much carbon dioxide as an acre of rainforest. …A range of industries have fueled the carving up of tropical forest in Indonesia [including] palm oil, paper and coffee companies…

New Zealand – The findings from EQC (Earthquake Commission of New Zealand)-funded research by … the University of Canterbury could have far-reaching implications for the construction and forestry industries and New Zealand’s quest to become a carbon-neutral economy. … The research team designed innovative high-capacity connections to resist earthquake forces and protect the integrity of the timber walls. … The research in Christchurch claims to have major environmental implications as the construction industry contributes around 40 percent of global CO2 emissions, while New Zealand’s building industry contributes around 20 percent of the country’s carbon footprint. “If we can put more wood from sustainable plantations into buildings, we can lock carbon into those buildings for at least 50 years…” says the project lead. “New Zealand has 2.1 million hectares of plantation forests and we grow a lot of … radiata pine that we can use for construction. We hope our research will convince the building industry to use more timber, which will also benefit our forestry industry.”

Third time lucky. In fact, all going to plan, it will be three long years since sawmillers and saw-doctors’ last met up outside of their mill environment. Covid 19 torpedoed the WoodTECH event planned to run in New Zealand in September of this year along with every other event across the region. Planning for WoodTECH 2022 is now already well underway. It’s based on the well thought out format that we’d set up together with industry and key technology and equipment suppliers from Australasia and around the world for 2021. The 2022 event is going to provide a unique independent showcase for local companies to evaluate the very latest in innovations, technology and operating practices around; saw design and operation, mill maintenance, wood scanning, sawmilling and mill optimisation.

Timberlink Australia unveiled the new brand for their forthcoming engineered wood products building solutions range – NeXTimber by Timberlink. NeXTimber by Timberlink will manufacture cross-laminated timber and glue-laminated timber products, providing an Australian-made renewable and carbon-positive timber building solution for commercial, residential, and public projects. Backed by a $63 million capital investment, the NeXTimber range will be manufactured on Australia’s first combined world-scale softwoods CLT and GLT manufacturing line, within a purpose-built manufacturing plant being constructed adjacent to Timberlink’s state-of-the-art timber manufacturing facility in Tarpeena, South Australia. Production will begin in 2023. Timberlink chief executive officer Ian Tyson said, “NeXTimber by Timberlink places us at the forefront of integrated forestry and softwood processing in Australia. 

CHRISTCHURCH, New Zealand — Building with engineered wood instead of concrete and steel offers a significant win for the environment, a new case study revealed. The study used Clearwater Quays apartments in Christchurch as its test case. Clearwater Quays is being constructed as a part of Mid-Rise Wood Construction, a public-private programme encouraging the use of New Zealand-engineered timber in mid-rise, prefabricated buildings. “Calculations show that using wood in place of concrete and steel to build this five-storey building is removing over a million kilograms of carbon dioxide from the environment,” says Barry Lynch. …The Clearwater demonstration building is part of the ‘Mid-Rise Wood Construction’ partnership between Red Stag and the Ministry of Primary Industries (MPI). The programme aims to accelerate and increase the use of mass timber and prefabrication in a range of public and commercial building types.

When the scaffolding finally came down from a new apartment building on the Gold Coast, social media was flooded with photos taken by awestruck locals. No one had ever seen anything like it; a building inspired by, and a celebration of, a nearby group of heritage-listed Norfolk pine trees, with a series of architectural curves mimicking their cone-like seed pods. “We’ve been taken aback by people’s reaction to it, to be honest,” says Koichi Takada, architect of Norfolk, the 10-storey apartment block at Burleigh Heads. “We knew it looked different from most other buildings, and it does stand out, but we’ve been really pleased to hear how much people are liking it.” …It’s not just for the look either. The curves are calculated to protect the residents inside from the elements, with slatted screens that can be opened to bring in the sunshine, light and air.

Stora Enso is extending its packaging products with a new portfolio of bio-based foams made from FSC-certified wood. The company says the products are fully recyclable and can be used for protective and thermal packaging. Its offering consists of Fibrease and Papira, foams that offer technical and sustainability properties. Stora Enso says Papira is a fiber-based monomaterial designed to be biodegradable and compostable. Papira can be recycled with paper or cardboard, that way the material can be used to make new paper products and ensure optimal use of resources. Fibrease can be recycled in any paper or board streams. The company says it has tested the packaging at real recycling facilities. The packaging can be collected through existing  recycling programs. Fibrease is commercially available now, while the pilot plant producing Papira has started operations at the Fors site in Sweden.

Forest-based biofuels are occupying an increasingly important role in New Zealand’s energy supply. Conversions of large sale industrial heat plants to renewables, including biomass is ensuring that local forest owners and wood harvesting operations are starting to sit up and take notice. The market and demand are already there, it’s increasing and the economics are really starting to stack up. …As part of this region’s spotlight being put on the opportunities that are opening up to the forestry industry in utilising forest residues, bin wood, offcuts that until now have been left on landings, short length or malformed logs that won’t meet MDF, pulp-mill or chip export log specifications, a workshop on in-field chipping innovations has been set up for those attending next year’s Residues to Revenues 2022 (R2R) event.

The European market for mass timber-based multi-storey buildings is growing at some 8% per year and is projected to grow from €5bn today to at least €10bn per year by 2030. Importantly, the development in wooden real estate is backed up by dynamic expansion of mass timber-construction material, especially engineered wood products such as cross-laminated timber (CLT), for which production capacity has been growing at 18% per year since 2013. …If other building types are added to multi-storey buildings, the resulting market volume would be even larger… The amount of wooden construction projects and their size is growing. …Globally, the development in the wooden real-estate is backed up by dynamic expansion of mass timber-construction materials such as CLT, for which production capacity has increased at an average 18% per year since 2013. The use of CLT is expected to continue growing rapidly and will almost triple by 2026. …Besides …reducing carbon emissions, wood-based real estate is ecologically sustainable. 

Trade membership body Timber Development UK is partnering with New Model Institute of Technology and Engineering in Hereford, Edinburgh Napier University and the Passivhaus Trust, to challenge built environment students and recent graduates, to design a community centre that is truly sustainable. Teams have been tasked to create a community building which produces more energy than it consumes while working across four distinct careers in the built environment; architects, engineers, cost consultants, and landscape architects. …a programme of webinars will be provided [for the students] in early 2022 giving teams tips, tools and insight. Tabitha Binding, Timber Development UK, university engagement programme manager, said: “Built environment professionals must prepare for a net zero future, and this must start in the classroom if we are to reach our climate goals. Our curriculum must be strengthened to meet the climate challenge by raising climate literacy.

COPENHAGEN — Henning Larsen has unveiled a new large timber building for Copenhagen. The project, dubbed Marmormolen, will be one of the largest contemporary wood structures in Denmark and combine office, retail, and public programs on the Nordhavn waterfront. …The 301,000-sf, eight-story commercial building steps down to three stories towards the neighboring housing on the opposite side. Even though the building is one big volume, it is divided into smaller cubes that can express different tenants. …Marmormolen will break ground in early 2022 and is expected to complete in 2024.

Congratulations to Tasmania’s forestry and timber industry who teamed up with a local marketing company to win seven awards for excellence at the Australian Marketing Institute’s (AMI) national awards. Tasmanian marketing company The Claire Bennett Agency was responsible for all Tasmanian national and state award winners which related to the Original Tasmanian Timber campaign, commissioned by the Tasmanian Timber Promotion Board, and the Tree Alliance campaign commissioned by Private Forests Tasmania. Tasmanian timber is renowned around the world for its quality and the awards were judged against excellence, effectiveness and genuine marketing impact, and the Tasmanian entries faced significant interstate competition. “Congratulations Tasmanian Timber on an inspiring body of work,” said the AMI Judges.

Magdalene College Library

The Wood Awards 2021 winners have been revealed, recognising six buildings and two products as the year’s best structures made out of timber. The annual honours, which were established in 1971 as the ‘premier competition for excellence in architecture and product design in wood’, are a coveted industry accolade that celebrates the trusted material – a frequent and key protagonist in sustainable architecture and design in both modern and traditional projects. The selection spans a wide range of scales and typologies, from smart products and bespoke commissions to private homes and cultural buildings. It includes the Gold Award, which is given to a project that the judges ‘deem to be the winner of winners’, and this year went to the Magdalene College Library in Cambridge by Níall McLaughlin Architects. 

As a builder with a fondness for super high-performance homes, Jesse Glascott jumped at the opportunity to go big on sustainability when building his own place in the outer-Melbourne suburb of Warrandyte, about 30 kilometres east of the city.  …Glasscott and his family opted for a more complex Passive House design made from a mix of prefabricated structural insulated panels for the external walls and roof and mass timber for flooring and internal walls.  …The prefab panels were selected for their lightning-quick construction times. …The mass timber, shipped from Europe, was picked for the look and feel of the place as the family wanted and the product also made some of the larger spans possible. …For extra insulation – there’s already some in the panels – they decided on woodfibre. 

British designer Thomas Heatherwick’s studio is collaborating with architecture office Veretec to create a campus for global pharmaceutical company UCB in southeast England.  The proposal involves the refurbishment of the existing Eli Lilly and Company campus in Surrey and the introduction of a three-storey timber structure at its heart.  …The central timber structure designed by Heatherwick Studio and Veretec for the heart of the campus will be 2,870 square metres in size and used as a collaboration hub, according to the Architects’ Journal.  The visuals also suggest the structure will be completed with Heatherwick Studio’s signature use of curved and organic forms.