Blog

Designers selecting plywood are faced with a potentially confusing situation with different standards listing different stress grades. A recent project aimed to simplify the situation by relating the strength and stiffness properties of current softwood/hardwood plywood resources from both Australian and New Zealand to the existing plywood stress grades.

This project investigated how fire really affects timber construction and whether the building codes for Class 3 buildings, such as boarding-houses, guest houses, hotels, motels, or aged care facilities, could be modified with safety.

Using timber concrete composite (TCC) floors in multi-storey buildings is a viable, lightweight alternative to other flooring systems that offers potential cost savings and environmental benefits.

In this blog, Timber + Design magazine editor Tony Nielson introduces some of the content in the latest issue - 4th Quarter 2011.

Wood is frequently used in single residential and low rise structures – but why not more in taller buildings? Fire regulations are often the problem – read on to discover more about recent research….

We spoke to architect, David Pennisi about why he decided to go back to study - and why wood.

Enter your favourite photos of wooden objects and win an iPad 2 with Make It Wood

Associate Professor Gregory Nolan discusses the first year of the course – and some of the thinking behind it.

Now you can design, specify and build with windows and doors approved for Flame Zone use without shutters or screens.

WoodSolutions Tutorials are free, non-proprietary technical workplace presentations. We spoke to Alastair Woodard, one of the Victorian Lunch & Learn presenters.

A comprehensive booklet covering the design, specification, manufacture and installation of timber doors and windows, WoodSolutions Technical Design Guide 10, Doors and Windows is now available for free download.

A paper titled Very Tall Wooden Buildings with Cross Laminated Timber by J.W.G.Van De Kuilen, A.Ceccotti, Zhouyan Xia and Minjuan He was delivered at the Twelfth East Asia-Pacific Conference on Structural Engineering and Construction.

It’s been described as ‘the concrete of the 21st century’ and inspired the term ‘plyscraper’ – read on to discover more about CLT – cross laminated timber or download the free WoodSolutions Handbook.

The twelfth Australian Timber Design Awards, announced in Melbourne, showcased some of the best uses of timber in design and construction.

Planet Ark, one of Australia's best known environmental groups, recognises the benefits of responsibly sourced wood in their new Make It Wood campaign. Read on for the launch announcement.

Share the experience of the 2011 Adelaide Seminar through the views of architect, Tim Simpson

Developed by the CSIRO, AccuRate is designed to help builders and architects deliver greater energy savings in residential buildings, and reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

WoodSolutions technical guides are a popular information resource and the range of titles continues to grow with the new sacrificial timber construction joints and plywood box beam guides.

Read the profiles of the international and Australian speakers who spoke at WoodSolutions 2011 Seminars in Sydney, Adelaide and Melbourne.

An old tip site turned recycling depot in the Melbourne outer suburb of Dandenong seems an unlikely place for furniture designers, chefs, architects and artists to find inspiration

As issues around climate change and carbon become increasingly important, the carbon cost of building materials is set to become a common design consideration - with wood an natural beneficiary.

Queensland architect, Dion Seminara, chose wood to design a flood friendly house.

Where do find your information and inspiration? If you’re like most of us, you’ll look at magazines, surf the web, maybe attend some award events, get involved in a professional association and some development groups – and then, of course, there’s travel – near the top of the list for many people.

Airing under the new Planet Ark Environmental Edge brand, a new television commercial highlights the fact that wood stores carbon and that this is an environmental positive.