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T*o vEARS AGo. a Building

l- Products Dipest article introduced readers to WoodWorks, the first large-scale program with the objective of growing wood's share of the U.S. non-residential building market. An initiative of the Wood Products Council. WoodWorks is a collaborative effort of wood associations, research organizations, and

Go to the Fair

Wood Solutions Fairs are North America's premier educational forums for non-residential wood design, featuring a full day of seminars combined with a wood-exclusive trade show. They have proven highly successful during the WoodWorks pilot, attracting an average of 500 architects, engineers and others with an interest in wood's exciting design possibilities.

WoodWorks is seeking exhibitors and sponsors for the following Fairs: government agencies. It was introduced as a pilot program in seven states and is now being evaluated to determine whether it should evolve into a national program serving the entire continental U.S.

February 15 - Raleigh, N.C.

February 17 - Atlanta, Ga.

March 2 - Long Beach, Ca.

March 16 - San Francisco, Ca.

AprilT - Minneapolis, Mn.

Visit woodworks.org for details.

The purpose of WoodWorks is to gncourage the use of wood as a structural and finish material for buildings typically designed in steel and concrete, even though wood is permitted by code-such as schools, big box retailers, recreational facilities, offices, and mid-rise/multi-family. Through the program, architects, engineers and others can request free oneon-one support to address technical or code issues. They can attend free educational events or take advantage of the many online resources available at woodworks.org.

Although three years is not enough time to assess the program's influence against its ultimate objective of market share growth, opinion data collected during the pilot phase, combined with the results of two third-party program audits, provide strong indications that the program is indeed working.

Based on benchmarks established in 2008 and re-measured in 2010, opinion research firm Ducker Worldwide concluded that "clear improvement in the perceptions of wood for non-residential use have been made on the key attitudinal variables used to measure industry decision makers." These variables include: awareness of WoodWorks (up 2O7o), interest in learning more (up lSVo), overall satisfaction (up 3Vo) and likelihood to recommend (up .57o).

The "net" attitudinal improvement for wood-as compared to specifier opinions regarding steel and concrete-was also measured across a wide range of variables. Although wood didn't advance in every category. it did so in the vast majority. which greatly closed the historic gap or preference for steel and concrete in non-residential construction.

These shifts in opinion were influenced on numerous fronts, by the combination of many activities. For example, with several months remaining in the pilot, WoodWorks has provided support for 135 building projects completed or under construction and another 270 projects at the planning stage. Field teams have made more than 32,000 direct contacts with design and building professionals through face-to-face meetings and educational events. Advertising and other communications efforts have reached more than 10 million people. WoodWorks has produced a wide range of resource materials, and design professionals can visit woodworks.org to earn AIA/CES LUs and PDH credits without leaving their desks.

The program has also tackled a number of fundamental impediments to non-residential wood use in the U.S. For example:

To address a lack of wood design software being used by engineers, WoodWorks partnered with RISA Technologies. As a result, RISA developed a full range of wood design features for its popular RISAFloor and RISA-3D software programswhich users can now use to design all-wood and hybrid buildings. As part of the agreement, WoodWorks bought 200 licenses to give away free to engineers who agree to design a wood building within six months, which has already resulted in the design of more than 120 wood buildings.

To address the lack of wood design education offered to universi- ty-level engineering students, WoodWorks partnered with California Polytechnic State University. Working with universities and colleges nationwide, Cal Poly is leading the development of 30 wood design modules that can be used in undergraduate and graduate-level engineering programs and provided online for practicing engineers.

One of the most promising findings of the evaluation process is that WoodWorks has already surpassed its five-year objectives and, depending on the level of funding moving forward, is expected to increase these targets by between 25Vo and 50Vo.For lumber, this represents a total increase in consumption of I ,280 million board feet to 1,540 million board feet (respectively).

If you haven't already done so, we hope that you will leverage the achievements made to date for the benefit of your own organization-by making use of materials developed on behalf of the entire wood industry, for example, or by participating in WoodWorks events.

- Mr. Schuyler is Calfornia regional director lbr WoodWorks.

By Mike Dandridge