There was so much interest in Dendrolight that just two hours into the first day of the show the company had to refill the bin of samples available on its stand.
The lightweight engineered timber from Latvia has been in production for only 18 months but has already found a market in furniture, door blanks and internal joinery such as stair treads.
Dendrolight is layers of ‘ribbed’ timber glued together to produce a strong, but lightweight panel – in fact, 40% lighter than solid timber. Enthusiast and architect Ugis Senbergs described the product as “50% timber, 50% air”.
“It’s a revolution,” he told TTJ. “The cutting process reduces the weight and the natural tensions of timber.”
Dendrolight, which is made from small dimension northern European pine, is available in a range of configurations, depending on the end use – furniture, interior joinery, flooring or construction. At its factory in Ventsplis, Dendrolight produces the unadorned “middle layer”; a three-layer panel with Dendrolight sandwiched between MDF, HDF, plywood or solid wood; door blanks; and construction blocks. It can also be curved, making it ideal for interior designs.
Dendrolight’s head of sales, Peteris Vasuks, expects the three-layer panel will be the most popular product in the UK, and he added that James Latham plc is the first UK stockist.