Oxford’s halls of academe were a fitting venue for this year’s Institute of Wood Science conference, which saw around 85 architects, engineers, designers and wood scientists gathered at St Hugh’s College to discuss the theme “Why wood?

The message that speakers had to deliver was that, although timber is “no longer the sole preserve of the traditionalist”, as AJ Specification editor Ruth Slavid, has said, there is still an important PR role to be played.

“This is a good time for architects to become involved in designing with timber,” said Ms Slavid, conference chair. “Timber is hitting the zeitgeist for them in terms of its sustainability and sensuality.”

And, she said, supplementing the existing enthusiasm with improved knowledge was a way of adding value to timber. “There is a hunger for knowledge among architects,” she continued, “but they have busy, complex lives and they need knowledge and help aimed specifically at them. There is a great reliance on the knowledge that the timber industry has – communication is really key.”

The conference’s first speaker, Ciaran O’Connor, assistant principal architect of the Office of Public Works in Dublin, agreed. “The timber industry needs to streamline itself in terms of how it presents its information to architects, otherwise there is an information overload,” he said.

In describing the construction of the newly built Marine Institute in Galway, Mr O’Connor said that the extensive use of timber had been because “it’s psychologically warm, easily moulded and shaped and can be used in different situations. There is a huge variety of veneers, for example, enabling us to use the same species in different ways”.

Short time-frame

However, he advised “decisions on what to use are made in a very short time-frame, so the timber industry needs to get in there with advice on suitability and cost. For timber to move on, it needs to be able to arm wrestle at that level of functionality and make sure that what the architects specify is what they get… Architects will use timber if they know it’s consistent.”

For Mr O’Connor, a central issue remains one of timber’s longevity. “We always use preservative-treated timber for exterior use, but the green lobby would say that was wrong, that it was unsustainable, couldn’t be recycled and so on. That mentality has to be addressed because I would argue that if it extends the life of a building to 80 years plus, then that’s sustainable.”

It was a view reinforced by Osmose‘s Gordon Ewbank in his presentation on treated softwoods. “Preserving adds value in terms of adding to life expectancy, maximising the value for money and allowing the use of timber to its full potential,” he said. “Lower cost plantation timber can be enhanced and all parts of the tree, including the sapwood, can be used, minimising waste.”

For Sean O’Sullivan of Timbmet Silverman, the future for the continued specification of hardwoods lies in weaning specifiers away from the five favourites – iroko, sapele, meranti, utile and idigbo – and towards lesser known species such as jatoba and tatajuba.

“Tropical timber consumption has increased from 85 million m3 to 100 million m3 over the last five years and we have to reduce our dependence on such a narrow band of species or we’ll make life very difficult,” he said.

The use of engineered sections would also be a more sustainable route, he added. “We need to broaden the use of timber species, even if it means adapting to the challenge of working with less ‘uniform’ species, break out of current design norms and engineer efficiently. It’s the responsibility of the whole supply chain.”

Taking up the theme of efficient engineering, Ivor Davies of Napier University outlined the cladding experiments Napier’s Centre for Timber Engineering had been carrying out, the results of which should shortly be published in Designing the Timber Façade.

“The message to get to specifiers is to get the detailing for durability right and then think about what other measures might be appropriate,” he said. He advocated the “Scandinavian approach” which was to keep timber as dry as possible by moisture management, detailing, coatings and maintenance. “We don’t do maintenance in this country,” he said wryly.

David Venables, European director of The American Hardwood Export Council (AHEC), has long experience of promoting undeservedly less popular US hardwoods such as red oak. “We are getting better at supporting architects, providing information and making the connection between wood as a material and building design,” he said, AHEC’s recent publication Hardwood References being a case in point.

“Wood isn’t a homogeneous material,” he continued. “That’s where its potential is, although its variety is also what makes specification difficult. So the advice is ‘know your species and know their potential’.”

Mystery problem

Lack of information once cost furniture maker Luke Hughes dear around 15 years ago when a switch from oak to American cherry caused its Folio chairs to fail after five months of use at a merchant bank. Despite contacting everyone he knew in the industry at the time, the cause of the problem remained a mystery until it was set as a postgraduate project for an Oxford University student.

Wood science eventually gave Mr Hughes the answer, but it was a painful lesson and one he’d have been happier learning earlier. The good news, he said, was that the knowledge exists; the bad news was that it’s still in the timber industry’s “pockets”. “I can’t get at all this information and I think that architects are genuinely frightened about this,” he said.

Along with the need for accessible technical data and the need for a co-ordinated plan to educate the next generation of designers, extensive publication of best practice and a rebuttal of some of the lobby groups’ “wilder” claims should be priorities for the timber industry, he said. And he advocated sharing information and breaking down the traditional rivalries in the market: “We need each other,” he said.

Training the next generation is one thing but, as Peter Kelly of Howarth Timber reminded delegates, learning is now a life-long process and the emphasis is moving away from the tutor and towards the learner.

“We are bombarded with information to the point where our brains are full,” he said. “We have to have a go at things ourselves in order to make them more understandable and memorable.”

Hands-on training

Wood science courses, such as those run by the IWSc, provide a very hands-on training on the properties and characteristics of timber. “Understanding its mechanical properties and how it performs will help you know how to specify it and increase your confidence when dealing with customers,” said Mr Kelly.

“Understanding wood can help you avoid problems,” agreed Jim Coulson of Technology for Timber in a presentation that encouraged delegates to use all five senses to assess a piece of timber. “We need to be able to look at wood with our eyes open to see the quality, grade, origin and possible uses,” he said. “Provided we take a bit of time to understand the product and play to its strengths, then wood will serve us very well.”

Several of the day’s speakers referred to the constant battle to assert timber’s environmental credentials in the face of NGO activity. “Protesters might be irritating, but they’re not always wrong,” said Ruth Nussbaum, of ProForest, the company that operates the government’s Central Point of Expertise on Timber (CPET). “The job of these campaign groups is not always to be balanced and reasonable, but to get attention and they do that very well.

“Clearly timber is a renewable resource and preferable to fossil fuels, but there are still problems with its origins and many forests are under pressure from illegal logging, unsustainable harvesting, conversion to other uses and natural disasters,” said Dr Nussbaum.

However, she continued, the UK government has become a world leader in committing to sustainability.

“Certification is becoming the most reliable way of determining sustainability,” said Dr Nussbaum, adding that Category B evidence, which enables timber outside certification schemes to be specified, will become a contract condition.

“Certification is a good option, but it’s not the only one,” she said. “There isn’t one big answer. We have to find lots of ways of dealing with life in the 21st century.”