Mass Timber Market Updates - Feb 2025 - Week Nine

Wherever you are in the world today , welcome to the Mass Timber Construction Podcast . It's Paul Kramer , your host . Thank you , bruce Buffer , the veteran voice of the octagon . For almost five years now you've introduced this podcast . Thank you for your continued commitment . I hope you are having a great week . It is the last week in February .

It's about to change to autumn here in the Southern Hemisphere and spring in the Northern Hemisphere , so I hope that the cooler weather dissipates now and you are able to make some activities and have some fun outdoors rather than staying inside .

Let's have a look at what's making news around the world this week in mass timber construction land , and the big news that's coming out of the UK at the moment is the development of a climate change and housing crisis driven by economic conditions and growth , and the suggestion that timber offers a solution for renewable , low-carbon resources to move forward the

priority themes of the new strategic plan , improving data on timber and whole-life carbon . Promoting the safe , sustainable use of timber in construction as a material . Increasing skills , capacity , competency across the supply chain . Increasing the sustainability supply of timber that includes not only the sustainable supply of it , but of sustainable materials .

Addressing fire safety , durability concerns , including moisture , which isn't listed , but I think it's a big one that needs to be in there and increasing collaboration with insurers , lenders , warranty providers and , finally , promoting innovation and high performing timber construction systems .

They aim to increase sustainable homegrown timber planting , and the whole plan is based on the premise that they potentially could be delivering 1.5 million homes through a parliamentary pathway , and the roadmap that they've created develops an ambitious circular economy and sustainable low-carbon future .

Congratulations to the UK's initiative on trying to build a better future using more sustainable materials . If you'd like to check it out , you can head to our LinkedIn feed or head to the UK government and have a look for Climate Change , timber and Housing Crisis Strategic Plan .

And to North America now and Picton , and the new Prince Edward County Memorial Hospital in Picton is going to be a mass timber project .

The project is going to be the first mass timber hospital in North America , according to the president and chief executive , stacey Duab , the senior staff and the project officials spoke on the 26th of February in a public update which was held online , saying that the project is innovative . It's sustainable .

Sustainable it will really enhance critical aspects of the new building to build in mass timber . So the project is got some great concept drawings . If you'd like to head to our linkedin feed , you can have a look there .

Congratulations to everyone on the team and six months after announcing that millersburg is the site for the new CLT plant , timberlab and its partners , along with a list of dignitaries , including the governor , have broken ground in a ceremony .

The subsidiary Timberlab of Swinerton will have this new Lindgren Development lever architecture project designed for 190,000 square foot facility . The company officials say that it will be done and it will be one of the largest CLT production sites in the country . The news is great news for Oregon's mass timber industry and the revolution of timber technologies .

If you'd like to have a look at the concept drawing , you can head to Swinerton or Timber Labs LinkedIn feed or their web pages or go to ours .

And Cambium , a leader in sustainable supply chain technology , has made a pioneering entry into the mass timber market with the launch of the Carbon Smart CLT , the first CLT product crafted entirely from salvaged wood or timber .

This innovative material combines high performance engineering with environmental responsibility , setting a new standard for sustainable mass timber construction . Why Carbon Smart CLT ?

Well , they say that creating a layering process by using existing timbers and having the capacity for CLT to be put forward in a cross-laid up material , then using the reclaimed wood from the supply chain , this now supports another level of sustainability .

So if you'd like to check out more , you can head to our linkedin feed or go to cambium's website and have a look at their carbon smart clt . And good friend to the show and the podcast and personal friend of mine , nick hewson , has written an article for Architecture AU .

I have posted a link of this to his article on our LinkedIn feed and he talks about the evolution of mass timber and glulam timber and how it's recently gained popularity , specifically in Australia , because we're punching well above our weight on the global stage compared to the size of our country , compared to other nations , and he runs through some memorable

projects . So if you'd like to read more about some of the history , some of the journey that Australia has been on over the last sort of 15 years , you can actually read that in Nick's story . So congratulations , nick . Great article in Architecture AU . Head to our LinkedIn feed or head to Architecture AU to go and read it .

And to another good friend of the show , michaela Harms from Sterling Structural has been on the podcast . We'll come on very soon and talk about what I'm about to launch here on the podcast .

Right now they have come up with a prefabricated mass timber hybrid structural system for North America and announced just recently as this week that they have a new mass timber mock-up training kit .

The kit is designed to help vocational schools , training programs and unions educate and train construction industry workforce on the emerging use of mass timber and a wide range of structures . The kit includes everything you need to construct a mock-up of a small-scale mass timber and a wide range of structures .

The kit includes everything you need to construct a mock-up of a small-scale mass timber building . It's designed to educate , train installers of the fundamentals of mass timber .

This hands-on learning tool showcases components of prefab , clt and glulam and the launch of the training kit really does stand as a commitment to the mass timber sector from Sterling Structling structural . So if you want to have a look at some of the elements of the kit .

We have the working drawings , the concept drawings , on our linkedin feed and , if not , get in touch with sterling structural and they'll be able to help you . This mimics a approach that we have used in Australia ourselves , where we've devised a small kit of parts to train people in that vocational sector . So well

done for Stirling , for taking the initiative and doing this in North America , and I know many people will be interested to see how successful this approach is to adopt it in other areas . That's it , folks . That's all we've got time for this week in Mass Timber Construction Land .

I hope that you're having a great start to the month of March and that you catch up with us . Next week We'll bring you another episode of all the Mass Timber news from around the world , and don't forget to hit subscribe , like comment , share , repost anything that we have on our LinkedIn feed .

If you've got an academic manuscript sitting in your top drawer and you want a global representative journal that supports mass timber and the only true mass timber focused academic journal in the world , please consider our journal with an impact factor of 1.841 .

Don't forget to get along to the International Mass Timber Conference in less than a month now , at the end of March and if you haven't got your tickets now , I'm sure hotels are booking out really quickly . You might have to stay in Vancouver and trek down .

I hope not , but hopefully there's something in Oregon for you in Portland and we'll catch up with you next week . Good morning , good afternoon or good evening wherever you are in the world . Today this is Paul Kramer signing off on the Mass Timber Construction Podcast . Thank you ,