Timber Design Initiatives Ltd

Combating the donut effect: how relatively small, understated but high quality timber buildings can provide small communities with new hearts. If we're going to successfully confront the climate emergency, the use of locally-grown material needs to become the default architectural and engineering material choice.

Großweikersdorf Community Center / smartvoll Completed in 2020 in Großweikersdorf, Austria. Images by Dimitar Gamizov, Romana Fürnkranz, Wienerberger/Andreas Hafenscher, Jörg Seiler. The donut effect" - a familiar occurrence in Austrian communities. It slowly draws traffic away from town centers via local suppliers on the...

A game changer for mass timber manufacture and construction in the UK?

All this and more, much more, to be discovered in the Mass Timber Academy's upcoming online short course, 'Rethinking Construction: the Cross Laminated Timber Future'. Starting on Thursday 4 November, the five consecutive weekly afternoon sessions will open your eyes and imagination to CLT's possibilities.

Don't miss out on your place - register now at: https://www.masstimberacademy.com/shortcourses

or email for more details - [email protected]

Austrian CLT giant acquires UK’s largest Sawmill Operator The news earlier this week that the major Austrian producer of cross laminated timber and other solid laminate timber products, Binderholz, had agreed a takeover of the UK’s largest sawmill operator certainly came as something of a surprise to those of us who try to keep track of developments in t...

Early Career Architect / Architectural Technologist / Structural Engineer?

There's still time to book your place on the Mass Timber Academy's 'Design and Construct with Dowel Laminated Timber' online short course. Give your career a boost with an essential non-Covid injection of independent, objective and need-to-know information on these much under-utilised, non-glued mass timber systems.

Design and Construct with Dowel Laminated Timber The Mass Timber Academy's five-part online course 'Design & Construct with Dowel Laminated Timber' starts 02 September: book your place now!

If you thought mass timber was only about CLT, you really need to know about the various types of Dowel Laminated Timber (DLT) available.

Renewable, sustainable and simple to down-cycle, these non-glued solid laminate timber systems offer multiple positives in a circular economy approach to delivering on net-zero energy targets and the urgent need to address the climate emergency.

There's no time to waste: book your place now on 'Design and Construct with Dowel Laminated Timber' - the first of four short courses in the Mass Timber Academy's Autumn/Winter 2021-22 programme!

Design and Construct with Dowel Laminated Timber The Mass Timber Academy's five-part online course 'Design & Construct with Dowel Laminated Timber' starts 02 September: book your place now!

A recyclable bicycle repository: the circular economy shape of things to come in every city?

The Bicycle Garage / Tengbom Completed in 2019 in Kungsängen, Sweden. Images by Felix Gerlach. The bicycle garage by the central station in Uppsala, Sweden, combines functionality with a robust yet graceful design that takes both environmental...

Sometimes it's the small projects that catch the eye and demonstrate that modern timber architecture & engineering doesn't need to make giant structural gestures to move the needle on the dial. This one shows real subtlety - the relationship of the building to the forest has a timeless quality about it and the use of cedar shingles not only makes the curved external cladding of the roofs seem entirely natural but also allows the interconnection between the three cones to appear seamless.

Whilst clearly rooted in traditional Japanese wood construction techniques, the tapering roundwood trusses that form the inclined structure of the cone could be read as a simple engineering solution but bear closer examination, being simultaneously elegant and ingenious. Design, engineering and construction knowledge, experience and skill have all been applied here - to the benefit of the guests who find their way to this small hidden treasure.

Klein Dytham Architecture creates "fairytale building" for Japanese hotel Klein Dytham Architecture has designed PokoPoko as a clubhouse and activity centre surrounded by forest for the Risonare Nasu hotel in rural Japan.

Peter Wilson - our managing director - will be speaking at the Rural Housing Summit next week, primarily on our Build Back Rural project. He is accompanied by many other innovative and inspirational speakers throughout the week, but his talk is on the Tuesday morning. We’ll put the link to it in our bio and see you there!

We are delighted to announce the re-launch of our Mass Timber Academy - a new education approach that encourages and supports the use of innovation with mass timber in architecture and engineering. We have programmes suited to all stages in your career, from students to practitioners to those wanting to specialise in mass timber as a MTA Intrapreneur within their practice.

As we launch on Black Friday, we are offering 20% off any membership or programme purchases (for the first month/year) until Monday at midnight! Just use the code BF20 at Checkout.

Join us in working towards a new sustainable future for our industry and our built environments - it’s your future too!

All details on the membership tiers can be found at www.masstimberacademy.com

We’ve been busy investigating the local, national and international impact of our Build Back Rural project whilst writing our latest journal post. Link in bio.

A great Scottish example of affordable housing in CLT, Thorne Wyness’ USCA Community Housing at Ulva Ferry re-creates the vernacular architecture in a very innovative way. Wouldn’t it be great to see more spaces of this quality pop up across the UK?!

This weeks journal post on Build Back Rural explains global impacts on the Scottish-grown timber market. Now is the time to start using local resources for local homes. Link:

https://www.build-back-rural.com/19-10-2020