The Suspended Remnants - Timber Pavilion, which is part of the Future Timber Hub Research Project "Alternative uses for under-valued sawmill products in innovative timber structures" has been entered into the 2020 Good Design Awards. Thank you to our research collaborators, Swinburne University of Technology (special mention to Canhui Chen), who submitted the entry with The University of Queensland.
On the 22 June 2020 a group of delegates from the ARC Future Timber Hub, which included delegates from The University of Queensland, Griffith University, Department of Agriculture and Fisheries (DAF) and Hyne Timber were showcased the timber construction of the Monterey Apartments building site at Kangaroo Point, Brisbane, Australia. Simon Betteridge and members of the team at the Gardner Vaughan Group hosted the tour which highlighted the key drives and learnings for this market leading project.
Dr Joe Gattas, Chief Investigator from the Future Timber Hub, was interviewed by Channel Nine News, at The University of Queensland's Structures Laboratory, to showcase Cross Laminated Timber (CLT) which is being used to build the Monterey Apartments at Kangaroo Point in Brisbane, Australia. The news aired on Saturday, 6 June 2020 - Brisbane's 'Timber Tower'.
The CLT supplied for the project is from XLam, and the glulam supplied by Hyne Timber.
The Future Timber Hub are appreciative of Hyne Timber and Lendlease, who are both Future Timber Hub interdisciplinary partners, being involved in the ‘Building Greener Cities’ episode by ABC Catalyst.
The Future Timber Hub is proud of this 2019 TEDxUQ presentation by Carmen Gorska Putynska on "Self-extinguishing timber buildings: a climate change solution?".
Carmen is a Fire Safety Engineer, and recently finished her PhD at The University of Queensland. During her PhD studies she assisted on the Future Timber Hub Project "Exploring the self-extinguishment mechanism of engineered timber in full-scale compartment fires".
Please see news article from Timberbiz promoting our recent CLT fire test for the ARC Future Timber Hub project "Exploring the self-extinguishment mechanism of engineered timber in full-scale compartment fires".
The ARC Future Timber Hub are proud of Mr. Faircloth who has been a researcher on the Future Timber Hub project titled “Non-destructive evaluation of elastic material properties and acoustic characterisation of wood based massive panels" under the supervision of Dr. Chandan Kumar a Senior Scientist and the projects leader at the Queensland Government Department of Agriculture & Fisheries (DAF) Forestry Research team at the Salisbury Research Facility.
The timber pavilion that was exhibited last year in Barcelona for the IASS ‘Advanced Manufacturing and Materials’ Competition was on display at the Melbourne School of Design’s Future Prototyping Exhibition as part of Melbourne Design Week 2020.
Chief Investigators of the Future Timber Hub, Kim Baber and Dr Joe Gattas presented during the week. Kim Baber presented at a floor talk on the opening night and Dr Joe Gattas was on the panel at the Symposium on the 18th March.
The inaugural Responsible Wood Civil Engineering Prize for excellence in timber design has been awarded to Bridget Scanlan, a graduate structural engineer at The University of Queensland.
Bridget was investigating computational tools for residential timber design for her final-year thesis at The University of Queensland which has assisted with the Future Timber Hub project "Prefabrication and digital fabrication strategies for large-scale timber construction".
The second stage of the char fall-off study fire test at the QFES' White's Island Live Fire Training facility was completed on the 26 February for the Hub Project “Exploring the self-extinguishment mechanism of engineered timber in full-scale compartment fires”. This is the fourth test in the experimental series of large-scale tests in the ARC Future Timber Hub. The aim of the test was to demonstrate the occurrence of CLT self-extinction for a limited fuel load.
TimberBiz - 1 April 2020 - Determining self-extinguishment characteristics of CLT
On the 13 February the ARC Future Timber Hub at The University of Queensland (UQ) held a tour for the Honourable Mark Furner MP (Minister for Agricultural Industry Development and Fisheries), and Senior Managers of the Department of Agriculture & Fisheries (DAF).
The tour highlighted the research that the Future Timber Hub has been invested in since its launch in 2017, and the strong collaboration between UQ and DAF research.
Timber & Forestry Enews - Issue 598, 5 March 2020 - Future Timber Hub tour highlights commitment to research investment
On the grounds of The University of Queensland (UQ), near the Advanced Engineering Building, there is a Tiny House on display until the end of Feburary 2020. This house was erected to demonstrate 3E panels which was invented from a collaborative research project on hybrid FRP-timber thin-walled structures between UQ, the Queensland State Government Department of Agriculture and Fisheries (DAF), and Hong Kong Polytechnic University.
UQ's Faculty of Engineering, Architecture and Information Technology News - Published 3 Feb 2020 - UQ’s Tiny House based on a big idea
The Future Timber Hub has featured in the Built Offsite Magazine - Issue 18
Dr Joe Gattas, one of the Hub's Chief Investigators, showcases how the Hub has reached a number of milestones in its research on digital fabrication, prefabrication and manufacturing automation technologies.
On the 9 & 10 December 2019, the Future Timber Hub at The University of Queensland held a 2-day continuing professional development course on integrated design of timber buildings where an old friend from TRADAC days, Geoff Stringer presented on timber durability. Other subjects were fire safety (expert Professor José Torero) and building physics (expert Samantha Anderson). The 16 year old Ferry Boardwalk OSA designed at UQ was used as part of the workshop exercise.
The ARC Future Timber Hub are proud to advise that Adam Faircloth, a Timber Engineer with the Queensland Government Department of Agriculture & Fisheries (DAF) Forestry Research team at the Salisbury Research Facility, has been announced the winner and Australian representative for his research within the Future Timber Hub at the Institution of Structural Engineers’ 3rd Australian Young Researchers Conference.
Daily Timber News - published 21 Jan 2020 - "Young Queensland engineer wins with timber panels research"
Timber & Forestry Enews - published 24 Jan 2020, issue 592, pg 15 - "Recognised for CLT evaluation research"
Friday Off Cuts - published 31 Jan 2020 - "DAF researcher wins national award"
Manufactures' Monthly - published 21 Jan 2020 - "New research a win for timber manufacturers"
In November 2019 the Future Timber Hub at The University of Queensland hosted a Digital Tools for Innovative Timber Structures Showcase which had over 50 public attendees which were mainly made up of members of the Brisbane Computational Design Group.
The presentations for the evening included:
On the 9 & 10 December 2019, the Future Timber Hub at the University of Queensland held a 2-day continuing professional development course on integrated design of timber buildings with focus on fire safety (expert Professor José Torero), durability (expert Geoff Stringer) and building physics (expert Samantha Anderson).
The main focus of the Timber Queensland Board was responding to regional opportunities and technical innovations ahead for the State’s $3.2 billion forest and timber industry. A broad representation of Directors were elected.
Timber Queensland Chair Mr Paul Bidwell said the incoming Board visited the Future Timber Hub’s structural engineering and fire laboratories where experts from industry, government, and academia are collaborating to develop the skills, knowledge and resources to foster future growth of tall timber buildings.
On the 1 November 2019 fire testing took place at the Queensland Fire & Emergency Services (QFES) Qld Fire & Rescue Academy, located at the Port of Brisbane, for the ARC Future Timber Hub Project “Exploring the self-extinguishment mechanism of engineered timber in full-scale compartment fires”.
Industry were invited to witness this test for the first time and included engineers from Arup, Core Engineering, EWP, Holmes Fire, Omnii, Red Fire Engineers, Walkerbai and WSP. A crew from ABC TV's 'Catalyst' science documentary series were also on hand to film the fire test for their 2020 program about engineered timber.
A timber pavilion constructed by researchers from the ARC Future Timber Hub using an innovative minimal-waste design was recognised at an international conference in Barcelona, Spain last month.
The team presented the timber construction to a jury at The International Association for Shell and Spatial Structures conference, beating over 20 other designs for a commendation.
One of our Chief Investigators of the Future Timber Hub (Dr Paola Leardini, School of Architecture, University of Queensland) was a panellist at the recent Brisbane Open House Event - Tall Timber Buildings & Taking on Climate Change. This event was open to the public and displayed 25 King Street, which is inspired by the environmental benefits and versatility of timber and showcases timber from roof to floor. The 9-storey plus ground superstructure utilises a combination of revolutionary engineered Cross-Laminated Timber (CLT) and glulam (glue laminated timber). It is the tallest timber office building in Australia, if not the world.
