More and more architects, designers and project managers are finding that engineered wood is rapidly becoming the leading choice for solutions to meet the demands of both building codes and building owners.
A bonus for this burgeoning new development is that engineered wood products are increasing the product of choice of discerning architects and designers.
These changes bring advantages including better earthquake engineering design, faster and cheaper project management and material cost benefits.
Beyond the construction benefits that wood brings, the people occupying these new age office buildings are reporting high levels of satisfaction with the working environments that offices designed in wood bring their occupants.
Timber’s attributes have been recognised with a national conference that is planned for builders, developers, building owners and their architects, engineers, designers and specifiers for September 28th in Rotorua.
Entitled “Changing Perceptions of Engineered Timber in Construction”, the conference features an international line up of speakers. The 2017 conference theme is “Advantages of Timber in Mid Rise Construction.”
“We’ve brought together a wide group of people from building design and engineering specialists to the project managers who lead commercial construction work,” says Conference Director John Stulen.
Enthusiastic experts
“The one thing they have in common is their new-found enthusiasm for the attributes of engineered wood as a revolutionary new building material.”
“Every single speaker has gained their early work experience with traditional materials, so they are well-placed to recognise that wood meets or exceeds both structural and aesthetic design requirements,” adds Stulen.
“Many companies, like Lendlease, one of Australia’s largest developers, are discovering hugely positive reactions from employees of their new office tenants to these new wood-rich office environments.
“Their world-class office building, International House at Barangoo, has set new standards for commercial and environment benchmarks.”
“One of the leading community and home builders, Strongbuild, has just won an award for their Macarthur Gardens residential apartments as well – so there is wide acceptance of these new engineered wood buildings and techniques.”
Serious speakers
The list of international speakers includes:
- Karla Fraser, Senior Project Manager, URBAN ONE Builders, Vancouver, Canada
- Andrew Dunn, CEO, Timber Development Assoc, Sydney, Australia
- Adam Strong, Managing Director, Strongbuild, Australia
- Jeremy Tompson, Project Manager, lendlease, Sydney, Australia
- Julian Addington, Director, Engco, Christchurch
- Linda Lodetti, Managing Quantity Surveyor, Josephs & Associates, Christchurch
- Bernie O’Fagan, Managing Director, RM Design, Christchurch
- Daniel Scheibmair, Technical Manager, Building Officials Institute NZ.
Rotorua was the obvious choice as host city for an international commercial building conference with its‘Wood-First’ policy making it a local leader in encouraging sustainable commercial buildings.
The conference is set to be part of a wood technology week of events coming to the city in September, including the FIEA WoodTECH 2017 two-day conference and trade expo.
For full conference details see : www.cpetc2017.com
