The project 752 High Street Thornburry is a 5 Storey CLT project set to start construction in October 2019. The architect and the client pursued CLT in order for it's sustainability attributes.  We're lucky to sit down with the architect, Paul Gardiner from Gardiner Architects, Nathan Benbow the engineer from Vistek and the builders Alastair Holmes and Chris Wood from Sinjen. This project has multiple challenges in design and construction that has required innovative solutions from the project team.

Part 1 of the interview we discuss the:

•  the influence of early contractor involvement
• the relationship between the timber specialist engineer, the project engineer and the supplier engineers, and
• the use of building information modelling for the project.

Hope you enjoyed this episode. Stay tuned for next weeks episode where we talk about construction, durability and lessons learned.

Check out the WoodSolutions website, the world's biggest website on wood:

www.woodsolutions.com.au

The WS Technical Design Guide can be found here:

https://www.woodsolutions.com.au/articles/mid-rise-timber-buildings-design-guides

Shaun Walsh is the National President of the Australian Institute of Landscape Architects (AILA) and the CEO of City Parklands in Brisbane. Shaun's professional career has spanned 25 years in landscape architecture. Landscape architects are responsible for the design of al the spaces between our buildings, having a major impact on the well-being, sustainability and physical comfort of the occupants in a city. In this episode we discuss biophilic design, lessons from the indigenous and the designing for the external use of timber.

Check out the WoodSolutions website, the world's biggest website on wood:

www.woodsolutions.com.au

The WS Technical Design Guide can be found here:

https://www.woodsolutions.com.au/articles/mid-rise-timber-buildings-design-guides

The Pacific Timber Engineering Conference in 2019 had people from industry and academia share the latest developments in research in timber construction. I got to speak to 10 presenters at the conference, which will form the next two episodes of Timber Talks. In this weeks episode we continue where we left off, with 5 more presenters on topics such as adaptive design, connections, composite concrete/timber systems, robustness and CLT band beams. The conversations were taken at the conference, so please excuse the ambient noise and enjoy hearing about the latest research.  First off we have Jon Shanks on agile and adaptive design.

0.55 Jon Shanks from Timbered on adaptive design

5.45 Giovanni Scollo from Rothoblaas on connections

10.30 Robert Tan from Mitek on Composite Timber-concrete systems

13.00 Benoit Gilbert from Griffith University on robustness

15.50 Jeremy Church from Xlam on CLT Band-beams

Check out the WoodSolutions website, the world's biggest website on wood:

www.woodsolutions.com.au

The WS Technical Design Guide can be found here:

https://www.woodsolutions.com.au/articles/mid-rise-timber-buildings-design-guides

The Pacific Timber Engineering Conference in 2019 had people from industry and academia share the latest developments in research in timber construction. I got to speak to 10 presenters at the conference, which will form the next two episodes of Timber Talks. In part one you will hear 5 presenters from the conference on topics such as Passivhaus, sustainability, the capacity of forests, prefabricated timber envelopes and durability, from experts around the Asia Pacific region. The conversations were taken at the conference, so please excuse the ambient noise and enjoy hearing about the latest research. First off we have Toby Hodsdon from Arup, who will introduce us to the conference and talk on the role of research.

0.55 Toby Hodsdon from ARUP introduces us to the conference

4.15 Marcus Strang from the University of Queensland and Grun Consulting on Passivhaus and engineered wood

6.40 Andrea Stocchero from Scion on sustainability opportunities of timber

12.10 Eugenia Gasparri from the University of Sydney on Unitised Timber Envelopes

16.00 Geoff Stringer from the University of Queensland on durability

Check out the WoodSolutions website, the world's biggest website on wood:

www.woodsolutions.com.au

The WS Technical Design Guide can be found here:

https://www.woodsolutions.com.au/articles/mid-rise-timber-buildings-design-guides

Hans Blass is a professor of timber engineering at Karlsruhe Institute of Technology and  is world reknowned on his work into innovative and reliable structural timber connections. He is the author of the book 'Timber Engineering - Principles for Design' and previous winner of the Marcus Wallenberg Prize, for significant contribution to forestry and forest industries. He came to Australia for the Pacifc Timber Engineering Conference, PTEC, where I was lucky to catch him and talk to him about connections, sustainability and a taste for how timber is developing in Germany. As we were speaking at the conference, you're going to hear a bit of ambient noise.

The WS Technical Design Guide can be found here:

https://www.woodsolutions.com.au/articles/mid-rise-timber-buildings-design-guides

If you have any suggestions for guests or feedback on the show, connect with me on Linkedin and let me know:

https://www.linkedin.com/in/adamjoneswoodsolutions/

One of the advantages of timber, is it's ability to enable prefabrication for a building to simultaneously improve quality, price and program for a project. The design, logistics and manufacturing are all critical for efficient offsite construction to achieve these productivity gains. At the Frame Australia 2019 conference, I spoke with 3 world leading experts on this topic. In this episode you will first hear Nick Hewson the Design Manager for Xlam on DFMA and logistics, second is Karel Vinckier the founder of HSBCAD on the evolution of BIM, and finally you will hear from Ola Skoglund the COO of Randek on advancements in robotics.

Check out the WoodSolutions website, the world's biggest website on wood:

www.woodsolutions.com.au

The WS Technical Design Guide can be found here:

https://www.woodsolutions.com.au/articles/mid-rise-timber-buildings-design-guides

If you have any suggestions for guests or feedback on the show, connect with me on Linkedin and let me know:

https://www.linkedin.com/in/adamjoneswoodsolutions/

Research has shown that utilising exposed timber increases our connection with nature is one of the major elements of biophilic design with proven benefits in well-being and productivity. It also is commonly desired by architects for the beautiful finish, and by developers for market differentiation. 

The performance solution and engagement of fire engineers allows designers to utilise a much higher proportion of exposed timber structure. Today we speak with Rob Dixon and Travis Stirling, Senior Fire Engineers from Arup on their perspective on how to achieve the performance solution.  In this episode we discuss all the risks and the solutions for exposing timber in mid-rise timber buildings.

If you want some free generic advice on both the dts provisions or the performance approach for your project, the WoodSolutions team will be able to help. You can contact me directly at [email protected], and I'll put you in touch with the right team member.

Check out the WoodSolutions website, the world's biggest website on wood:

www.woodsolutions.com.au

The WS Technical Design Guide can be found here:

https://www.woodsolutions.com.au/articles/mid-rise-timber-buildings-design-guides

If you have any suggestions for guests or feedback on the show, connect with me on Linkedin and let me know what you think:

https://www.linkedin.com/in/adamjoneswoodsolutions/

Sustainability is currently a trend around the globe, and Australia has signed to the Paris Climate Change agreement, committing to keep global warming to below 1.5C to 2.0C. The buildings industry has made a lot of progress in understanding the solutions for operational energy, and inevitably the proportion of impacts that come from structural materials is increasing. Timber construction has a big role to play in reducing the  impacts of materials, and therefore understanding the life cycle is essential. Today we speak with Ulrich Dangel, the program director for Architecture at the University of Texas and the author of 'A Turning Point in Timber Construction', all about the different stages of the journey for a timber product.

Check out the WoodSolutions website, the world's biggest website on wood:

www.woodsolutions.com.au

The WS Technical Design Guide can be found here:

https://www.woodsolutions.com.au/articles/mid-rise-timber-buildings-design-guides

If you have any suggestions for guests or feedback on the show, connect with me on Linkedin and let me know:

https://www.linkedin.com/in/adamjoneswoodsolutions/

Changes to the 2019 National Construction Code Volume One increase the range of buildings, up to an effective height of 25m, in which fire-protected timber construction systems can be used. New responsibilities are placed on the Structural Engineer, Architect and Certifier. Today we speak with Paolo Lavisci, the Program Development Manager - Mid-rise Construction at WoodSolutions and Boris Iskra, National Codes and Standards Manager at Forest and Wood Products Australia about:

• What are the new 2019 NCC updates,
• Which building types have the greatest opportunities from the changes, and
• The general movement of building codes around the world

This is a two part series where today we focus on the DTS provisions of the 2019 NCC. Next week we will explore the performance solution approach for exposed timber.

Check out the WoodSolutions website, the world's biggest website on wood:

www.woodsolutions.com.au

The WS Technical Design Guide can be found here:

https://www.woodsolutions.com.au/articles/mid-rise-timber-buildings-design-guides

If you have any suggestions for guests or feedback on the show, connect with me on Linkedin and let me know:

https://www.linkedin.com/in/adamjoneswoodsolutions/

Michael Marks is the co-founder of Katerra, a vertically integrated company setting up a global supply chain, utilising factories and prefabrication to paving an entirely new construction process with a quantum leap in efficiency. Michael has been named the top 10 CEO's of all time within Silicon Valley, as he grew Flextronics from $93 million revenue to $16 billion, and was previously an interim CEO of Tesla.

The multi-trillion dollar global construction industry is ready for change. Construction companies typically invest less than 1% of revenue into new technologies - lower than every other major industry. Katerra is on a mission to change this by optimising every aspect of building design, materials supply and construction. Early results indicate we can expect an improvement in quality, increase in productivity and a reduction in overall costs.

In the podcast we spoke about Katerra's take off event. Check it out here:

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCz2NPBeDIssraA3tCX6ikNw

If you've got a question about wood, then you'll find the answer on the WoodSolutions website, the world's biggest website on wood:

www.woodsolutions.com.au

If you have any suggestions for guests or feedback on the show, connect with me on Linkedin and let me know:

https://www.linkedin.com/in/adamjoneswoodsolutions/