The Developers Digest Q1 Issue

20
Have Your Say
The Forest Before The
Building
By Wekesa Simiyu
Architect, Build X Studios
With a rapidly growing urban population,
Kenya faces an annual housing deficit
of close to 200,000 homes according
to Housing Finance Africa. To achieve this growing
demand, we need to reduce our reliance on mineral
based, carbon intensive, finite building materials and
focus on renewable, biobased materials such as mass
timber. Mass timber is a building system made of
multiple solid wood pieces bonded together to create
panels, posts, beams and other elements of exceptional
strength.
Trees naturally sequester carbon dioxide from the
atmosphere, which is stored when used in durable
products. By using sustainable timber products to
construct buildings we guarantee that carbon is locked
away long-term, whilst we are also avoiding the high
carbon emissions from using concrete or steel.
The market value of forest resources, especially timber,
is on the rise and is a long-term repository of value. A
recent report from international engineering firm Arup
has estimated there could be 668,000 ha of plantation
area available across the East Africa region of Kenya,
Uganda, and Tanzania by 2040 to produce mass timber.
Utilising sustainable plantation forests in the
construction industry requires a change of approach.
The extractive idea where a resource is eliminated from
one area to benefit another is an exploitative process
that has been adopted from mining of finite materials.
This mentality is what has made the use of timber
in construction to be vilified as it is associated with
deforestation. The same way we invest in buildings as
long term assets is the same way we should think about
our forest resource. What we reap as profits is what we
use as building materials and then we maintain the
investment cycle.
By creating more value in forests with mass timber,
we are able to provide incentives for better forestry
management and more private capital investments
into forest growth. An increase in plantation forests will
increase the carbon sequestered from the atmosphere
and can create positive feedback loops benefitting the
climate and the economy as a whole.
As a new product on the market, full mass timber
construction will cost a premium compared with
traditional methods. With growth in the demand,
the superstructure costs will decrease significantly.
Hybrid solutions, which merge mass timber elements
with traditional methods can lower initial costs whilst
gradually introducing the product to market.
BuildX is developing mass timber demonstration
projects as a critical step towards creating market
demand and fostering an enabling environment for
mass timber processing and building at commercial
scale. An established mass timber sector offers a unique
opportunity to address the growing housing deficits in
Nairobi and other urban centres across the continent.
Author Bio:
Wekesa is a Kenyan licensed architect, Autodesk Tech
Leadership Development fellow, Quality of Life and
wellbeing champion and the mass timber lead at BuildX.
He has worked on projects focusing on alternative building
technology to advance environmentally conscious
materials, affordable healthcare, and socially responsive
design solutions. As Mass Timber Lead he is overseeing the
development of BuildX’s flagship mass timber building in
Kenya.
Before we think about building, we must start with asking
ourselves if we can reuse what is already existing. If we
absolutely need to build then careful attention should be
given to ensure efficient use of materials and the use of
renewable materials. Thinking about the end of life of a
building is equally important.
Adopting a Long-term Perspective in the Real Estate Sector