Wood Watch

Vorarlberg, the smallest and most western province of Austria, because this region is the most innovative. It attracts thousands of architectural tourists from all over Europe who come to see the clever use of traditional materials and clear, sleek design:
www.austria.info/us/austria-unique-like-you/vorarlberg-architecture-1471616.html.

This innovation, smart design and focus on sustainability have helped Vorarlberg become the fastest growing and wealthiest region of Austria.

This region has lots to offer New Zealand where we are keen to catch up with the Australian economy and to create green sustainable jobs.

I had the good fortune to meet Gerhard Ludescher who had a prefabricated wood building business and now wants to bring innovative building systems from Vorarlberg to New Zealand. He gave me a guided tour of some inspiring Vorarlberg buildings for people and animals. The following pictures illustrate how the NZ building industry and economy could lift its performance by learning from Vorarlberg’s examples.

New Sutterluty supermarket. The old one was demolished and a new one built within 3 weeks thanks to simple design and prefabrication.

The inside is light and open with exposed wood on walls and ceilings.

Sutterluty is a regional chain of supermarkets whose success lies with simple architecture using local materials and a commitment to promoting high quality local food. eg you can cut your own slice from the 30kg local cheese.

New factory being built with large glulam beams to give 64 metre by 58 metre open space. When the scaffolding is removed, the factory workers will get a clear view out over Austria, Switzerland, Germany and Leichtenstein.

The huge glulam and wood structure give a high fire rating which is important for a factory handling flammable materials. Wood structures are known to be much safer for fire fighters than steel and concrete which can collapse unpredictably – the collapse of the New York Twin Towers being a classic example.

The exterior view of the factory gives an idea of the size.

This new apartment block has been built to energy plus standards meaning minimal need for artificial heating and cooling as well as solar panels on the roof so that the building generates more power than it consumes.

Another energy plus apartment block had a display showing how much electricity was being generated and the total so far with the equivalent number of kms of car travel equivalent. The display shows 4.8 kw being generated which jumped to 7.5kw a minute later when the sun came out.

On the way to Vorarlberg, I visited the Energy Innovation Centre in Weiz, near Graz. A group of researchers here use highly sensitive ecg machines to test the performance of people in buildings with different linings. Of particular interest is knotty pine which has been known to make people feel more relaxed. Their research shows that children in wood lined classrooms have 8,600 less heartbeats per day and adults in knotty pine lined offices have 3,500 less heartbeats than conventional materials. This researched has sparked an increase in the use of wood linings and wood furniture in Austria.

www.humanresearch.at/webcontent/pg_EN.html

This regional Bank provides a great example of the relaxed feeling inside these wood buildings.

The main reception area includes a space for customers to display their products for a month.

The receptionist has relatives in New Zealand and she proudly showed us around the building. She said that it was a great place to work and the bank has close relationships with its customers. This view up into the upper 3 storeys highlights the wood construction.

We visited a school which had a similar relaxed feeling. A teacher proudly told us how good the school was to teach in. Classrooms had great views and plenty of natural daylight.

We visited was a huge riding stables built by one of the richest men in Austria for his daughter. It has a huge indoor riding arena. You can see a jump in the distance.

The high quality accommodation attracts horses and their wealthy owners from around Europe. The high quality wood buildings have helped this business become an immediate success.

Comparing Vorarlberg with New Zealand

Vorarlberg has a wood building tradition going back several centuries. It moved away from wood during the 1970′s and 1980′s but then a group of architects decided to promote wood architecture both old and new. This has been assisted by a keen interest in sustainability, carbon emissions and low energy use. Now wood dominates the vibrant building sector in the region. Modern prefabricated building systems using glulam beams and cross laminated timber along with high quality factory prefabrication have rejuvenated the wood building industry and made wood suitable for almost any building project.
New Zealand has a strong wood building tradition and many houses were built almost completely of wood until around 1960. There was then a move to brick, plaster board linings, and concrete floors with wood being retained for just the house frames. There has been a move back to exposed wood in the last few years. The 3 supreme winners in the Registered Master Builders house of the year competition featured wood.
The Christchurch earthquake has put the spotlight on wood for rebuilding. Wood has performed well in the earthquakes and many people would like to see Christchurch rebuilt as a green city. Using wood has the advantages of low energy use and carbon is stored for the life of the building.
Laminated veneer lumber (LVL) has been used for the NMIT building in Nelson and has won international acclaim for its great design and earthquake performance. A Cross Laminated Timber (CLT) plant is being set up in Nelson, www.xlam.co.nz and this is the first one in the southern hemisphere. The combination of LVL, Glulam and CLT along with conventional timber components will allow almost any building in Christchurch to be built with wood. If Christchurch was rebuilt mainly with wood, the South Island economy would get a great boost, far greater than by using imported materials and materials with a high energy content.

Better Use of New Zealand Wood

New Zealand exports over half of its 20 million tonne harvest as logs. Forestry adds around $5 billion to the NZ economy while Austria with a similar harvest adds $NZ20 billion to their economy. New Zealand pine is well suited to high value prefabricated building components and wall and ceiling linings. This has been clearly demonstrated by the solid wood building group www.solidwood.co.nz  There is no reason why our forest harvest will not add as much value as the Austrian harvest. It will take a change of mind set to see our wood as a high value product. The New Zealand Merino company managed to change the mindset about merino wool over a 15 year period. Vorarlberg gives us the inspiration to do the same with our wood for both the New Zealand and export markets. How long will it take us?

Regards
Michael Cambridge
President, Marlborough Forest Industry Association www.marlboroughforestry.org.nz
Board member of PrefabNZ  www.prefabnz.co.nz

Tags: Construction, Engineered Timber, Engineering