The combination of sluggish domestic and key export markets in 2014 saw a dip in the fortunes of the Austrian timber industry.
In fact, production dropped 5.2% to €7.08bn, the same level as 2010. The industry also saw its first fall in employment in decades, with the workforce contracting by 1,700 to 26,216.
Despite this reversal, however, Austrian timber producers and processors still look set well for the future. They are backed by a prime raw material resource and seeing positive strategic development in timber and wood product demand at home and abroad. They are also strongly focused on innovation, notably developing a market leading position in engineered wood and particularly its application in large scale construction.
The sector comprises 1,369 companies, 950 of them sawmills. Most are SMEs and nearly all are family run. In 2014 mill output was 8.4 million m3, worth €1.9bn.
The industry is also heavily export oriented, selling 68% of overall output abroad in 2014, worth €4.78bn. Foreign sales are predominantly softwoods, glue laminated products and panel products, with 74.4% going to the EU and 13.1% by other European countries.
Two thirds of sawmill production also goes abroad, making Austria the sixth largest sawn softwood exporter in the world (and its seventh largest producer).
Meanwhile Austria’s timber imports in 2014 amounted to €3.67bn, 87.2% of which came from the EU.
A key trend in the Austrian market is timber’s increasing penetration of building. A combination of the impact of fashion, technical improvement and active promotion by the proHolz campaign has seen timber based construction’s share of new build rising from 25% to 43%.
NEW PRODUCTS FOR OLD But perhaps the aspect of the Austrian timber sector that most captures the international market imagination is its modern engineered timber products, notably glulam and cross laminated timber (CLT), and its evolution of prefabricated systems using them.
Large-scale, prestige and high-rise projects are where these products are increasingly making their mark and driving timber’s market share.
Austrian engineered timber features in a significant slice of the UK’s headline grabbing timber buildings of recent years, including a series of high rises and most recently London’s giant Canary Wharf Cross rail station and BSkyB Building, with more dramatic projects in the pipeline.
Associated construction technology developments in Austria include groundbreaking connector systems that take engineered wood into previously unexploited areas. Among the latest is the new ‘Spider’ connector, developed by manufacturer Rothoblaas and the Innsbruck University Institute for Construction and Material Science.
Previously it was not possible to set CLT floors on pillars without additional support structures due to the high localised mechanical stresses. The award-winning, load-distributing Spider, however, enables CLT floors up to 5 x 5m to be installed without extra beams, making them much more competitive with concrete.
Also expected to take the material in whole new directions, literally, is curved CLT.
This is a real technical challenge to produce due to the transversal tensile stress and potential impact on load carrying capacity. However, manufacturer Holzbau Unterrainer has now had its curved product ‘Radiusholz’ evaluated by the TVFAInnsbruck laboratory and is due to receive its European Technical Approval (ETA) in January.
Radiusholz, says the producer, saves time and money over other approaches for achieving curved timber elements and offers much greater flexibility for architects. It is already in use in Austria, with the ETA, expected to be made more widely available.
As to where Austrian timber is headed next, one direction will definitely be upwards, literally.
In fact, in early summer 2016 work is due to begin on the world’s newest tallest timber building; an 84m high 23-storey wooden skyscraper.
The so-called HoHo Wien (short for HolzHochhaus or timber highrise) will be built in Vienna’s Aspern district and will be constructed mainly with CLT around a concrete core.
