Timber structures Engineered timber
Mass Timber Office Forum Oliver Hartley-Booth outlines the topics discussed by this focus group to help increase the use of mass timber in the commercial office market.
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n January 2020, as a member of the TRADA Advisory Committee, I was approached by several industry leading developers with an idea to set up a forum focusing on mass timber and hybrid construction, specifically relating to the commercial office market. Popularity and uptake of mass timber and hybrid structures has been rapidly increasing in the past five years for many reasons. More recently the urgency to address the climate change crisis and increased focus on improving the health and well-being of the end-user has propelled this form of office construction to the forefront of commercial developments across the UK. The embodied carbon credentials of timber have an incredibly important role in reaching the ambitious targets that the UK and many countries around the world have set to achieve net zero carbon by 2050 or before, to begin to tackle the effects of climate change.
Structure and aims The team at Gardiner & Theobald (G&T) set about structuring the forum’s sessions into the following categories:
The main purpose of the Mass Timber Office Forum is to bring together experts and stakeholders from across the industry to discuss and debate the barriers to using mass timber in office construction. Originally due to be held in person at G&T’s headquarters, the series had to pivot and reorganise digitally due to the impact of Covid-19 and the national lockdown implemented in March 2020. However, this challenge presented a fantastic opportunity to host these sessions as webinars that could be www.trada.co.uk
recorded and then distributed to a larger audience to share knowledge and experiences. TRADA, the Timber Trade Federation and the Structural Timber Association are part of the forum audience, and are actively collaborating to ensure the lessons from these sessions are disseminated across the wider industry. The forum is co-hosted by G&T’s Matt Holman (the Chair) and myself, and the monthly sessions focus on hot topics to help share knowledge and information that can be referred to when considering mass timber for commercial office projects. To date, eight successful webinars have taken place, discussing key topics such as insurance, fire, sustainability, capacity, best practice in construction and cost.
The insurance forum Voted by the audience to be the number one barrier to market for mass timber office buildings, the first session discussed: • the value of the mass timber industry1 • current barriers to market • the way forward with the insurance of mass timber offices both during and post-construction. The use of mass timber across the industry is increasing, generating a wider debate in the insurance industry on the assessment of timber buildings to evaluate the insurance premium requirements against the differing risks to concrete and steel structure frames. Some of these risks don’t fit easily into long-established construction classes and comparatively little statistical data exists to help insurers when underwriting mass timber buildings. Experts included: Andy Desmond of Marsh, Dominic Lion of Gallaghers, Caroline Hairsine and Oliver Wright from Aviva, Andy Penny and Robert Innes of Zurich, Nick Tilley from AXA, and David Lyle from Lockton. The panel discussed how these challenges also present opportunities for the sector, and how increased collaboration across the supply chain, data sharing and early initial engagement with the insurance industry could help mitigate these risks. >> Timber 2021 Industry Yearbook
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