Cedar clad timber floating office , the Floating Hub at St Katharine Docks
Why I love building with wood.
Wood the world’s oldest building material is now the most modern, thanks to developments in processing and manufacturing highly engineered timber components. We are not restricted to building with just beams, posts and planks there is a whole range of sophisticated, high performance engineered products available. And as the thousands of medieval and Tudor timber houses around the country show timber will last as long as concrete or masonry.
Timber is particularly suited to modern workshop construction methods which deliver high quality buildings that require minimal time on site causing less disruption. This is good for delivery schedules, budgets and neighbours.
Is there enough wood to build all the houses we want?
Professor Chad Oliver of Yale University in a report (March 2014) for the Journal of Sustainable Forestry estimates the world’s forests contain about 385bn cubic metres of wood, with an additional17bn cubic metres growing each year. Only 3.4bn cubic metres are harvested annually mostly for fuel. There is enough and building with wood instead of concrete, bricks and steel would drastically cut global emissions.
High quality, high performance buildings that lock in carbon storage, this is a winning very eco friendly way to build.