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Article > Timber driving its own design agenda Technical Editor for MMC, Bruce Meechan, attends an evening seminar in the capital which brought together some eminent advocates of wood as a material for major buildings. > Metsä Wood represents hundreds of Finnish growers who ensure the sustainability of the product range through their multi-generational management and replanting of the forests. Despite having heard about Metsä Wood's Plan B programme prior to attending the debate sponsored by the company at The University of the South Bank some weeks back, I was not prepared for the striking form and impressive size of the engineered timber model in the foyer. Replicating New York's iconic Empire State Building. There was no irate primate or circling bi-planes to reprise the 1933 film or any of the remakes, but the scene set out for the students, architects and other professionals attending did not require any added drama. Neither do the other two structures, steeped in history, that have also received the Plan B treatment from a company renowned for its involvement with countless contemporary buildings across the construction sectors. For while Metsä Wood has supplied its cross laminated timber or CLT systems for schools, nursing homes and other high specification properties across the UK, its attempt to "reimagine" projects prominent in history, from a timber perspective - have focused on the Colosseum in Rome and the German Reichstag, as well as the 102 storey, 1,454 foot tall office block which still stands out on the New York skyline today. Effectively, what the Finnish timber importer has managed to show is that any of the world's most striking structures - even those of massive scale - could feasibly be built today using advanced timber technology. Not simply replicating them, but actually improving on them in a variety of ways, offering benefits for both the builders and the occupants or users. We will return to the particulars of the Plan B project later, but it was the shared agenda of the architects assembled at the LSBU building which is of even greater relevance to our readership. Representing as they do some of the most adventurous design practices active in the UK. All of them have been instrumental in delivering successful projects in either engineered timber, or what most in the industry would regard as 'stick-build' - but it was a remark by Andrew Waugh whose practice, Waugh Thistleton designed Murray Grove, which stood out for me. He asserted that: "Timber will generate its own architecture!" 34
Amongst the benefits he highlighted for the landmark social housing scheme and other predominantly timber based builds were the lightness, speed of erection and the reduced reliance on heavy equipment. Andrew Waugh commented as he ran through his slides that "These are robust buildings." However he explained how they went together without the use of tower cranes, while the erectors mainly made use of cordless screwdrivers or other hand-held tools for assembling the components. Furthermore, while nail guns tended to be the noisiest feature of the construction cycle, the acoustic performance of the finished structure was addressed using a variety of insulation materials and a pumped screed flooring system. The latter feature also offers a ready answer to timber framing's widely recognized lack of thermal mass. In fact such screeds can both provide a feeling of substance under foot - even accommodating disability buggies indoors - and create a heat sink to flatten out spikes from the daily heating and cooling cycle. For his contribution to the evening's proceedings, Metsä Wood's Head of Technical, Engineering and Design, Frank Werling, opted not to expand on the details of the Plan B process, but to explain some of the potentials for the manufacturer's extensive product range; including Kerto. He explained how Kerto Q offers different properties to Kerto S through having some 20 per cent of the wood grains orientated crossways in the manner of plywood. The sophistication of the production processes not only enable the characteristics of the timber elements to be fine-tuned, but these can of course be reassembled into I-beams or box sections to allow widely differing load conditions to be accommodated. For its analysis of Rome’s ancient gladiatorial arena, Metsä Wood not only made use of physical measurements and satellite photography, but also assumptions about the live loads which would have been imposed by spectators and lions alike. With these then "At 190 metres by 158 metres, the Colosseum is a huge building – almost three times the size of an average sports arena. Initially, I thought that wooden construction to such an extent wouldn't be feasible in reality. As the project proceeded, I changed my mind. It would not only be possible, but easy as well." Architect Antti Laiho available to input into the company’s sophisticated design software, it was found that LVL or laminated veneered lumber, could indeed sustain the loadings. The celebrated architect Antti Laiho duly worked with Metsä Wood’s structural engineer, Jussi Bjorman, to produce a new structural solution employing various LVL products in order to recreate the Colosseum’s distinctive elliptical form. Significantly, the LVL structure was not only shown to offer a lower weight and quicker erection, but also 12% additional space in the vaults below the seating arena. This could now potentially accommodate VIP facilities and retail outlets. It is also certain that health and safety standards would be unrecognizable from the workplace of 72 AD. Antti Laiho asserted: "At 190 metres by 158 metres, the Colosseum is a huge building – almost three times the size of an average sports arena. Initially, I thought that wooden construction to such an extent wouldn't be feasible in reality. As the project proceeded, I changed my mind. It would not only be possible, but easy as well." Offering a perspective from the opposite end of the timber engineering spectrum, John Broome - principal of John Broome Architects - posed the question to the audience of what a sustainable neighbourhood might look like? And having been closely involved in guiding a genuine self-build project in the London Borough of Lewisham, where residents were hands-on with a basic timber frame build, he suggested that: "Over the years we have been building with panel construction and ‘poles' (apparently whole sections of tree trunks) I think this is a hint about how one might think about having a building culture which is accessible to people at large; and based on functional ideas rather than stylistic ones - based on needs and economies of scale as well as environmental performance and variety of use." The impression that everyone will have left the South Bank with after the seminar is that timber is as versatile in construction as the potato is in cooking. MMC May 2016 35
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MMC 5543 48 May '16 cc (1)

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