by Web Editor | Nov 18, 2016 | News
A 5,000 seat stadium, built entirely from timber, has been commissioned for the British soccer club Forest Green Rovers football club.
The stadium will be the focus of a $124 million “Eco Park” development, which totals over 100 acres of space dedicated to sports and green technology. The stadium will be commissioned by London-based architectural firm Zaha Hadid (ZHA), who won a seven-month-long international competition to design the stadium. Over 50 entries from around the world were submitted.
Designed to be the world’s greenest football stadium, it will be constructed completely from timber and powered by sustainable energy sources.
“The really standout thing about this stadium is that it’s going to be entirely made of wood – the first time that will have been done anywhere in the world,” said Forest Green Rovers chairman Dale Vince. “Our new stadium will have the lowest carbon content of any stadium in the world.”
Constructed from slats of timber, the stadium’s undulating, wave-like style was not only selected for aesthetic and design purposes, but acts as an acoustic device to contain crowd noise. Positioning of the seats will be calculated to give spectators completely unobstructed views of the pitch.
From Woodworking Network: https://www.woodworkingnetwork.com/news/woodworking-industry-news/world%E2%80%99s-first-all-wood-stadium-commissioned-england?ss=news,news,woodworking_industry_news,news,almanac_market_data,news
by Web Editor | Oct 7, 2016 | News
If the vast potential of timber construction isn’t obvious, a new exhibit at Washington D.C.’s National Building Museum aims to clear things up. Running through May 2017, the USDA-sponsored Timber City is drawing attention to the recent boom in a worldwide movement toward timber construction.
It’s opening up a new market that has been turning the mills at a growing number of wood products companies, including Montreal’s Nordic Structures, Sauter Timber in Rockwood, Tennessee, and D.R. Johnson.
Oregon-based D.R. Johnson Wood Innovations, a subsidiary of D.R. Johnson, specializes in the manufacture of cross-laminated timber (CLT) and glue-laminated beams from Douglas fir and Alaskan yellow cedar. They’re the first U.S. company to receive APA/ANSI certification to manufacture structural CLT panels – and they hope to help grow the U.S. market.
D.R. Johnson is one of only three North American companies certified by the Engineered Wood Association to construct CLT for use in buildings. The company employs 125 at a traditional sawmill and laminating plant, which was recently expanded by 13,000 square feet for increased CLT production. They’re currently fielding calls from hopeful builders, and manufacturing samples to be tested for fire safety and structural quality.
D.R. Johnson says the system for constructing CLT involves assembling prefabricated parts, speeding construction, and paring labor costs. The company partnered with wood processor manufacturer USNR to build a custom panel press for CLT.
From Woodworking Network: https://www.woodworkingnetwork.com/events-contests/event-coverage/timber-construction-exhibition-shines-light-industry
by Web Editor | Aug 31, 2016 | News
In Vancouver, Canada, the towering timber Brock Commons just had its final panel installed, making the dream of the world’s tallest timber building a reality, reports the website Inhabitat.
In just 66 days – ahead of the original scheduled timeframe – the exterior of the Acton Ostry Architects‘ record-breaking design has come to fruition, which could bump up the projected fall 2017 completion date to next year’s spring semester. The final panel of the University of British Columbia student housing structure was lifted and installed earlier this month.
John Metras, managing director of UBC Infrastructure, said, “Construction just went really smoothly. It was well designed and the construction sequence went smoothly.”
Construction began last November, followed by the erection of the building’s freestanding concrete cores earlier this year.
To ease fire safety fears of an 18-story timber structure, Brock Commons is outfitted with a sprinkler system and the wood is encapsulated in drywall and concrete. The lighter weight of the building also allows for better energy dissipation during an earthquake, making it proficient at withstanding all kinds of disasters. Students will be able to move in next year, quite possibly in the spring semester.
From ProudGreenBuilding: https://www.proudgreenbuilding.com/news/worlds-tallest-timber-building-topped-off-ahead-of-schedule/
by Web Editor | Nov 30, 2015 | News
We get so excited about Cross-Laminated Timber (CLT), the fancy plywood on steroids that we talk so much about on TreeHugger. But in fact, there is a much older technology for building with wood, that warehouses and factories were built out of 150 years ago with a fancy new name: Nail-Laminated Timber, or NLT. It used to be known as heavy timber or mill decking and is drop-dead simple: you just nail a pile of lumber together and voila.
Lucas Epp of Structurecraft stunned the audience in a presentation at the Wood Solutions Fair in Toronto, showing extraordinary projects built out of the stuff. Because while CLT is great stuff, it’s pretty new in North America, it’s expensive, and it’s not fully understood by the building inspectors. Whereas if you are doing a simple span, NLT does the job just fine, it’s a lot cheaper, can be made by anyone with a hammer and has been in the building codes forever.
It’s now being used in a 210,000 square foot, seven story office building in Minneapolis, where the developer, Hines, wanted “the warmth of wood and the embrace of green construction techniques and materials” to attract the tech and creative sector of the market. It also goes together much faster than a conventional steel or concrete building.
Heavy timber office and warehouse construction fell out of favor early in the 20th century after major fires in a number of cities caused the switch to concrete and steel noncombustible construction. The development of effective sprinklers has reduced that risk, and concerns about the carbon footprint of concrete have made renewable wood look a lot more attractive.
From TreeHugger.com: https://www.treehugger.com/green-architecture/old-new-again-nail-laminated-timber.html?utm_source=WIT112715&utm_medium=Email&utm_campaign=WeekInTrees
by Web Editor | Jul 2, 2015 | News
For the seventh time, the Schweighofer Prize, the Innovation Award for the European Forest-Based Sector, was awarded last month. Austrian forest-based industrial and initiator Gerald Schweighofer awarded the prizes in the presence of Austrian Federal Minister for Agriculture and Environment Andrä Rupprechter, Austrian Federal Minister for Labour and Social Affairs Rudolf Hundstorfer, as well as Vienna’s Mayor Michael Häupl.
This year for the first time, the Schweighofer Prize established a cooperation with one of the largest integrated forest products companies in the world; the North American company Canfor which produces timber, cellulose and paper. Canfor sponsored ten students from Canada and the USA to take part in an “Innovation Workshop” on the day before the Schweighofer Prize. According to the motto “From Knowledge to Innovation”, 27 young researchers from a total of 16 countries exchanged ideas under the leadership of Schweighofer Prize jury chairman Prof. Dr. Alfred Teischinger (University of Agricultural Science) in the domed hall of the TU Vienna.
The main prize 2015 was awarded to Dr. Erich Wiesner from Altheim, Austria. He was honored with €100,000. “Dr. Wiesner has developed his company into a leading timber Construction Company in Europe. The completed projects present impressive and technically demanding constructions. In addition to his successful entrepreneurial activities, Dr. Wiesner has acted for many years as a leading representative of woodworking industries both in Austria and on a European level”, said jury chairman Univ. Prof. Dr. Alfred Teischinger.
From FORDAQ: https://www.fordaq.com/fordaq/news/Schweighofer_prize_Vienna_innovations_42620.html
