Engineered Timber
Engineered timber is the name for special types of wood products made by joining smaller pieces of wood together. This efficient process creates a strong, versatile and sustainable structural material that is perfect for low energy buildings.
Why Use Engineered Timber and Prefabrication Methods?
Timber Preference:
- Timber, a versatile and renewable material, offers strength, lightness, and timeless beauty.
- Thoughtful detailing ensures timber structures last for centuries, providing joy, comfort, and shelter.
- Timber structures can adapt to changing needs over time, locking away carbon from its growth until return to the earth.
- Timber’s biophilic qualities may contribute to occupants&’ calmness and health.
- Its tactile and colourful nature brings joy to building occupants.
Energy Efficiency:
- Timber excels in thermal bridging performance due to its natural insulating properties, reducing heat/cold transfer compared to concrete or metals.
- Low production energy requirements make timber an eco-friendly choice.
- Timber stores approximately 50% of its dry weight as carbon throughout its life.
- We specify timber from managed and certified FSC or PEFC plantation sources, ensuring sustainability.
Benefits of Prefabrication:
- Engineered timber is ideal for offsite prefabrication, enabling rapid assembly and reduced construction time.
- Precise 3D modelling upfront leads to better construction detailing with minimal thermal bridging and air leakage, crucial for passive houses.
- Combining insulation and structural qualities makes timber cost-effective, reducing the need for multiple construction layers.
- Timber often serves as the finished surface, saving costs and minimizing the use of other materials.
- Timber’s lightweight nature reduces footing requirements and material usage.
- Timber can be worked using simple hand and machine tools.
- Woodworking processes are low or non-toxic to workers and occupants.
- Timber reduces the need for specialist trades, heavy machinery, and onsite fire and safety risks, creating safer, quieter workplaces.
- Over a building’s lifecycle, timber structures have lower long-term maintenance and running costs.
Fire Performance:
- While combustible, timber’s insulating qualities lead to slow, predictable, and measurable combustion.
- In larger buildings, we design oversized elements with the understanding that fire forms a sacrificial charred layer on the surface, insulating the core timber from the fire’s heat.
- Special grades and species are used in bushfire-prone areas, incorporating additional cladding, insulation, and ember protection details.
What are the Benefits of Engineered Timber?
- Strength and stability: Engineered timber can handle heavy loads.
- Efficient and lightweight: Mass timber is strong yet lightweight, enabling spacious buildings with fewer structural elements.
- Environmentally friendly: Made from fast-growing trees, it reduces reliance on non-renewable materials.
- Flexible design: It can be customized into various shapes and sizes, facilitating unique architectural creations.
- Fire-resistant: Some types have good inherent fire-resistant properties, forming a protective char layer in larger members.
- Energy-efficient: Provides natural insulation, reducing heating and cooling needs.
- Sustainable choice: Made from renewable wood resources, it helps sequester carbon dioxide.
- Quick construction: Prefabricated mass timber speeds up the construction process.
- Improved acoustics: Reduces sound transmission, creating more comfortable indoor spaces.
- Natural and appealing: Adds a beautiful, warm, and natural aesthetic to architectural designs.
- Health: Embracing biophilic design with natural tactile materials benefits occupants’ well-being.
