A Renzo Piano-designed cultural centre, featuring 10 towering iroko glulam pods, set on a tiny spit of New Caledonia, and the Prestwick tennis club where Andy Murray first played, have something in common.
Both buildings were engineered, prefabricated, delivered and reassembled on site by Mathis, France’s "leader in wood framing systems and glulam".
Neither of these structures would have caused much of a ripple at the company’s colossal wood-crunching plant in Sélestat in the Alsace.
Mathis may not be so well-known in the UK yet, but it is one of the biggest glulam and wood structure players in Europe, and exports worldwide. And it aims for its low profile in the UK to rise too. Its work on the Prestwick Tennis Centre was a while back, but it is now hoping to increase its market presence following a successful debut Ecobuild in March.
Mathis started as a sawmill in 1875, then, in 1956 made its first glulam. It never looked back. Today it produces 10,000m3 of the material a year, equating, said international project manager Alan Dolléans, to about a building per day. It makes the latter too. In fact, when it comes to timber buildings, there isn’t much the company doesn’t do.
"Our unique selling point is that we do everything in house," said Mr Dolléans. "We source all our timber, mainly from France, central Europe and the Nordic countries, and make the glulam. We design and detail and also undertake erection, or send out our engineers to oversee clients’ construction teams. We also now produce SIPs panels, and even make our own steel connectors. We have our own foundry, which means we can manufacture to the exact project specification."
Recently Mathis expanded to keep up with demand and the ever-growing dimension, complexity and capabilities of its construction components and it now occupies a 17,000m2 plant on a 6ha site, double the size of its previous factory. It took advantage of the extra space to install new technology too.
"We’ve got the latest design and engineering software, which enables us to work remotely with architects and engineers," said Mathis UK representative George Brennan. "We’re also now using three robotic routers which can produce an almost limitless range of glulam beam profiles – and single beams can go up to 840x2050mmx45m. We can do shapes from round, to oval, squared, even a tapering ‘elephant’s tusk’."
Mathis has started to make complementary concrete products.
"We’ve developed our own concrete/timber hybrid sound and vibration deadening and insulation system," said Mr Dolléans. "This comprises pre-formed engineered concrete planks fixed to timber beams with specially developed shear connectors. The system gives the floor a great degree of insulation and is perfect for such buildings as libraries, laboratories and multi-dwelling housing. It is
also suited to green roofs, which timber is not well equipped for."
The company, he added, has also developed a hybrid timber/steel floor and beam system.
Mathis’s project portfolio covers an enormous range of building types: commercial and public, residential developments, warehousing, aircraft hangars, factories and other large-scale industrial buildings, even power stations. It also specialises in sporting venues. The latter include not just tennis courts like the Prestwick Tennis Centre, but gyms, swimming pools, athletic and football stadiums, the biggest to date being Lille’s 55,000-seat capacity Métropole Stadium
"The only thing we don’t tend to do is individual housing," said Mr Dolléans. "We could, but we prefer to focus on multi-dwelling housing and apartment blocks. We are not exclusively, but largely focused on scale."
Some Mathis buildings are developed up from standard models and designs. On others it works closely with designer and specifier to come up with something bespoke – a case in point being Piano’s Jean Tjibao Cultural Centre on New Caledonia in the Pacific.
The design of the 8,550m2 museum, heritage and events space is inspired by traditional indigenous Kanak culture. Consequently the focal point is the 10 giant pods, rising up to 28m and towering above surrounding trees, which are based on Kanak huts. Their outer shells comprise giant curved ribs or staves, which are made of extra durable iroko slats to withstand the blast of sea, wind and rain off the Pacific. The timber is tied with steel connectors and the staves are inter-linked as if woven together. The bottom of the wall has special iroko louvres, which are opened and closed in tandem by a computer control system calibrated to wind speed.
The scale of some Mathis projects is as impressive as their design and complexity. The biggest beam delivered to date was for the Jian You power plant in China, stretching 100m in a single span. The Prestwick Tennis Centre may not be the most demanding building design-wise, but it is impressive in scale too, with its largest piece of glulam spanning 36m.
Mathis still mainly sells in France, where it is currently working on a zero carbon fivestorey block, but exports are also growing fast. Key markets include Asia, Africa, North America and the Middle East, where it has an office in Dubai. Sales to China and now South America are also on the rise.
"We even sell glulam buildings to Canada, where they already have a major timber construction industry," said Mr Dolléans.
Mathis’s growing success abroad, he maintained, is down to technical expertise, and bespoke materials, which include Colorlam, a glulam built up from different species so it has a multi-layer sandwich effect.
Scale and cost efficiency also help.
"I was involved with Prestwick, and Mathis was able to compete easily with local building system suppliers," said Mr Brennan.
Despite its low profile to date, the French company does now see good prospects in the UK. "We got a very positive reception from builders, architects, designers, and local authorities at Ecobuild," said Mr Brennan. "The UK is more interested in this construction approach today, indeed all forms of sustainable building, and we also have word of mouth recommendation from UK architects and designers we’ve worked with in the Middle East."
Ecobuild visitors seemed particularly drawn to Mathis’s one-stop shop approach.
"If you’re not too familiar with timber construction, the fact that we can deliver a turnkey solution with full engineering assistance on site, does appeal," said Mr Dolléans.
Based in Alsace, he added, means Mathis has ready access to the UK by road and rail, making it even more the prime target. Clearly the company is intent that the Prestwick Tennis Centre won’t be its one and only appearance in the market and it is currently tendering for several projects here.
