Apart from the fact that a whacking slab of melamine-faced chipboard flipped off the back of an oncoming truck on Sunday and embedded itself neatly in the front of our car, I’ve only got positives to report about timber and timber products this week.
The previous weekend, as Michael Buckley mentions in this week’s guest column, timber figured highly in projects shortlisted for the prestigious Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) Stirling architectural awards.
On the Monday, timber products and timber frame were even more in evidence at the launch of the Coming Homes exhibition at the RIBA headquarters in London. The three-month event, which is sponsored by Finnforest UK and Channel 4, focuses on how the UK can meet its growing need for new and different types of housing. RIBA president Paul Hyett told the 300-plus assembled architects at the event that, due to changing demographics (notably the increase in young single households, child-free couples, and the independent elderly) we’re going to need 3.8 million new houses and flats over the next quarter of a century.
What is more, thanks to ever stricter rules on energy use and more discerning consumers, these new properties will have to be environmentally sound to build and live in, high quality and well-designed.
On show at the exhibition there is a wide range of social and private housing projects, either planned or under development, which satisfy these criteria. And on a quick scout around I reckon that the majority are either entirely timber frame, or blend timber frame with other forms of construction.
In our timber treatment supplement this week, we also have plenty of evidence of how the latest preservative and processing systems, from acetylation to boiling in oil (so I’m not a scientist) are set to render wood still more environmentally sound and durable and give it an even sharper marketing edge.
So, if someone could tip me off as to who was driving that truck-load of MFC on the A264 near Tunbridge Wells last Sunday evening, it would round the week off perfectly.
