CLT will surge through a range of big and small buildings before settling into a sustainable presence in the middle-range market, according to a senior executive from XLam. Source: Philip Hopkins for Timberbiz
Dr Paul Kremer, the company’s head of marketing, strategy and sustainability, likened the onset of CLT in Australia and New Zealand to the ‘J curve’.
At the top end was the start of the technology in 2011, followed by the dip down.
“This is below the line of making money, we’re investing so much money, people like Lendlease did not make money on their first job, they made money on their third and fourth job,” he told the DANA forestry conference in Launceston. “Why? There was a learning curve that needed to happen.”
Dr Kremer said the tallest proposed building was in Japan, but it was not possible at this stage, too far-fetched.
“We’re going through the showcase phase – all want to claim the tallest building, biggest office block, etc. Bravado is not negative, it spurs on others, it’s competition,” he said. “But when the market settles down in 10 years, with a good supply, assurances of supply, hybrids will come in.”
Dr Kremer said the approach of the Legal & General housing model in UK was likely to become the scenario.
“Build factories and buildings from a catalogue, pick what you want and it will be delivered, change the façade,” he said. “Four to six storeys space, it will not be 10,20, 30, 40, 50 storeys all the time. The bread and butter will be in that market.”
Dr Kremer said now, CLT ‘hotspots’ were emerging all over the world. The latest inclusion was South Africa and Brazil was now testing CLT, while Singapore had the most volume of CLT projects outside Europe. Its national university involved 5000 cubic metres of timber.
The number of CLT projects was now “off the scale”, Dr Kremer said.
In Canada, Michael Green’s six-storey wood innovation design centre was novel in that it used beetle-affected timber, while Norway’s Treet Tower, at 14 storeys, was currently the tallest CLT building in the world.
Future projects included Cathedral Hill executive office in Ottawa, 13 storeys; Hyperion in France, 18 storeys and 57 metres high; the Origine Tower in Quebec, 14 storeys; and HSB in Stockholm, 34 storeys and 100 metres.
Questioned where CLT logs sat economically compared with sawmill timber, Dr Kremer said he preferred to talk about the costs of material.
CLT at first cost about 30% higher than concrete for the same dimension of thickness but could not span the same distance.
“That has come down to four per cent difference in cost. Construction costs for concrete have gone up, not CLT down,” he said.
“In future, more CLT will come on line, people will still import. I welcome the import products – it means the industry is growing.”
Compared with traditional sawmills, Dr Kremer the advantage of CLT was that the timber was joined together. It was a continuous product that took different lengths and sections of the log. “But we can’t take non-structural – we do not just take anything, it’s still structural,” he said.
From a cost perspective, CLT was neutral compared with concrete. “Concrete is a higher cost, but CLT can’t span the same distance, and steel will always win that one, spanning a greater distance,” he said.
Questioned whether CLT would in future go into detached housing, Dr Kremer said: “We are already in the high-end market. He cited architect James Fitzpatrick house in Sydney, which made extensive use of CLT and specialist timbers.
“It’s phenomenal, it’s in the high-end market,” he said.
XLam’s first project was a house.
“We do have the capacity,” he said, but it was more the Ferrari/BMW to a Commodore common builder.
Dr Kremer said the hardest challenge was to try and break the cycle for volume builders as it was now, to concentrate on the deliver side, not the cost side.
“They look at costs – ‘it’s too high’- but do not factor in the value of building faster and customer satisfaction. That’s where the challenge is – costs versus value, that’s where it will become significant,” he said.
Dr Kremer said hardwood could be used in CLT. The Hermal Group was building a plant in Burnie with eucalyptus nitens.
“They will fill that spot, the two technologies will work quite well together,” he said. Glulam columns could be made from hardwoods.
“All these technologies will have a place. It will settle down; we are in the dip of the innovation curve, we have not yet started to go up. We will need at least 10-15 per cent adoption of technology before it becomes a mass,” he said.
“There’s the mass group of early adopters and the laggard will take it on as well, there will be a settling of technologies, but there is enough demand now in Australia, NZ and Asia to accept all technologies.”
Dr Kremer said spruce had an 11000 ‘MOE’, whereas “ours was 8-10”, depending on the material you used. With a 12%-15% cost disadvantage, “we have to add more mass”.
“That’s not a bad thing. It helps stability and improves fire performance and the physical performance – things equalise out,” he said.
Dr Kremer said there would always be a design element, which was why services were important.
“You build a CLT and glulam consistent structure, you can overcome ‘9 x9’ as an ideal structural solution,” he said.
Services included CLT panels with functions added to them creating greater value. CLT was not just timber bonded together but could be us a plaster board or cladding system.
Dr Kremer said material hybrids, which were already happening, would become more prevalent, such as a CLT and timber product with a concrete screen over the top.
Timber would be used as a composite of steel and concrete. The focus would be on understanding the design elements of projects and understanding the products – “what is possible”, what difference added value could make.
