Government has introduced a statutory tree and woodland cover target which commits to increasing the tree canopy and woodland cover in England to 16.5% by 2050. But not only do we need to plant trees, we also need to make good use of the materials they provide to us.

Government has introduced a statutory tree and woodland cover target which commits to increasing the tree canopy and woodland cover in England to 16.5% by 2050. But not only do we need to plant trees, we also need to make good use of the materials they provide to us.

The durability of a timber construction can be high. There are examples of wooden churches (Stavkirke churches in Norway) which are hundreds of years old, and we have various examples in our historical heritage proving that construction with wood can be durable (Pombaline anti-seismic construction, flooring, etc.).

Wood is a material with an excellent seismic performance. It is light, its construction members show major deformation capacity and are systems of great redundancy.

Wood has a good performance under fire. Wood burns when submitted to temperatures above 300ºC. Yes, and this property is called reaction to fire.

The 5 myths about cross laminated timber (CLT)

The supply of wood in the European Union (EU) is based on principles of sustainable forest management. Construction is not in any manner linked to global deforestation (...)

Know the main advantages.

Cross Laminated Timber (CLT) is a wood-derived product which emerged in Switzerland, towards the end of the 1980s, having been subsequently developed in Austria, under a research project involving industries and universities aimed at using wood members of smaller dimensions.

The timber frame (Figure 1) originated in North America during the 19th century as a consequence of two factors: the availability of standard industrial products (sawn wood) and the need to boost a fast construction system, due to the rapidly growing colonisation of the Wild West of the United States.

Architecture has always been sensitive to building with wood. Indeed, it’s the engineers that currently place most obstacles to the encouragement of using wood in Portuguese construction.

The supply of wood in the European Union (EU) is based on principles of sustainable forest management. Construction is not in any manner linked to global deforestation.

As is the case for reinforced concrete and steel structures, the main regulation applicable to timber constructions is the Eurocode, in the case of wood, Eurocode 5 (...)

The concept of prefabrication corresponds to members, parts or even entire buildings produced in a factory and transported to a construction site for fast installation.

The advantages of construction with wood

Due to the major energy efficiency of the construction system, the use of cross laminated timber (CLT) is a valuable resource in civil construction, as it has a performance similar to that of traditional structures made of concrete, masonry and steel in diverse applications; therefore, being a viable solution in the execution of walls, flooring and roofs.

The growing demand for large-sized timber for large-scale projects arises from this new paradigm and imposes a different operationalisation of the construction process which highlights the management of time and process in the planning phase, in detriment of the actual construction phase.