LAMINATED TIMBER PRODUCT OVERVIEWS Sarah Hicks Element5, Marketing & Communications
“Canadian-owned and operated mass timber fabricators have recently joined the mass timber market. With their introduction comes the opportunity to source mass timber products sustainably and locally, to manufacture high performance wood components and buildings.” White River Forest Products is a community-operated sawmill in White River, ON. The local forest picures here is processes into lumber, some of which is transported to Element5’s CLT factory in St. Thomas, Ontario.
Collectively, the construction, maintenance, and demolition of the built environment is a leading source of the world’s carbon dioxide emissions. In the face of climate change, exponential population growth, and urban densification, it is imperative that society develops sustainable building solutions to meet the housing and infrastructure needs of a growing population without accelerating climate change. These goals cannot be achieved by doing things the way they have always been done. New products, systems, and ways of thinking must prevail. The need for a radical shift in the construction industry is, in part, fueling the mass timber revolution today. The shift to more wood construction is not solely the result of environmental pressures; the uptake in wood use is also tied to the industrialization of the construction process.
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DANIELS PUBLICATION
Industrialization in construction is, in essence, the growing shift from site-built developments to off-site manufacturing that is enabled by Building Information Modelling (BIM) and Computer Numerically Controlled (CNC) fabrication. Yes, mass timber is the most sustainable choice as a renewable, carbon sequestering resource, but it is also the material best suited to this new form of construction. A fully integrated suite of professional services and products offer a single point solution for the supply, design, and construction of mass timber buildings. The significant gains that can now be made through offsite manufacturing, including just-intime delivery, are fuelled by BIM technology. BIM provides real-time visualization capabilities for an integrated schedule, enabling simultaneous monitoring of offsite and field activities,
empowering the project manager to carry out the construction schedule more effectively. The ability to integrate offsite and field construction allows a project team to work in ways that synchronize the progress of these operations. Site preparation, for example, can be done while the building components are being fabricated in the shop. Asset information, such as specifications, part numbers, suppliers, and loading sequences, can be exchanged during this process. Panels and components are identified through a codification system that corresponds to the digital twin (BIM model). This enables accurate traceability of the panels and supports planning, logistics, and assembly activities, notably in the form of 4D modelling. This process provides an opportunity to make ongoing improvements by recording performance against planning and budget to
integrate lessons learned. The role of the mass timber supplier is to ensure the constraints relative to the mass timber shell are thoroughly considered at all stages of the design and strategic decision-making process, from early design to assembly. In this way, the fabricator can help guide the project team toward improvements that can be realized at scale through a commitment to detailing out complexity in form and sequence, thus generating savings. Canadian-owned and operated mass timber fabricators have recently joined the mass timber market. With their introduction comes the opportunity to source mass timber products sustainably and locally, to manufacture high performance wood components and buildings. More than just mass timber fabricators, these
A HISTORY OF FOREST AND FACTORY
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