September 1, 2009

Materials

Forest industry seeks ideas for non-conventional wood products

KORKY KOROLUK

correspondent

The Canadian forest industry is launching a program to find and fund construction projects that demonstrate non-traditional uses of wood.

The initiative is being spearheaded by Wood Works and the Canadian Wood Council. The Quebec Wood Export Bureau, FP Innovations, Ceccbois, a Quebec industry group, and Natural Resources Canada are also partners in the initiative.

Funding, by NRCan, will come from a federal pool of $10 million set aside to support large-scale demonstration projects that, ultimately, will benefit the Canadian wood industry in both domestic and foreign markets.

How much of that pool is earmarked for this demonstration program has not been announced.

The target of the program is non-residential construction, said Steven Street, technical director for Wood Works Ontario. Wood Works is a project of the Canadian Wood Council that promotes the use of wood in non-residential construction.

The first step is a call for expressions of interest from the Canadian design community.

Street said in an interview that when the expressions of interest are in hand, they will be evaluated and a short list of possible projects will emerge.

The expressions of interest will be relatively brief documents. They will be judged under various headings, including innovation, sustainability and building performance. Under each of these headings there will be evaluations of such things as the use of wood in exterior walls, interior walls, columns, floors, roof systems and several others.

“What we want to do,” Street said, “is highlight the innovative use of wood.”

An example might be CLT — cross-laminated timber — something that is little known in the Canadian market.

He explained that CLT is a “massive, solid wall panel, made of solid timber.” “‘Giant plywood’ is what an ordinary person might call it.”

“The Europeans have very successfully developed it and are using in buildings now.”

He mentioned a nine-storey wood building using CLT recently built in London, that’s “really pushing the structural boundaries of wood.”

The deadline, for expressions of interest is September 21.

Anyone interested can find complete details at www.wooddemoprojects.ca.

That site also contains full background information and an example of the matrix that will be used to evaluate submissions.

Print | Email | Comment