News & Events | ARC Research Hub for Advanced Solutions to Transform Tall Timber Buildings

5:00pm 9 Dec 2020

This webinar held on 9 December 2020 covered significant opportunities within the current timber supply chain to utilise our natural timber resource in a more efficient, and valuable, way. Researchers from The University of Queensland and ARC Future Timber Hub presented new computational design approaches for resource-adaptive timber construction, and designer-led development of resource-efficient building products and systems.

Harry Mills - Resource-responsive design strategies for under-utilised timber
Caitlin Reid - Lamination heuristics for utility-grade nail-laminated timber
Dan Luo - AI defect identification for timber resource recovery

10 months 2 weeks ago

The ARC Future Timber Hub is very proud of Harry Mills, ARC Future Timber Hub PhD student at The University of Queensland, who's Gottstein project: "Underutilised Timber (UUT) Acceptance through North America and Europe" has featured as cover story of the Timber & Forestry Enews, issue 634.
In 2019 Harry was awarded the Gottsten Fellowship. The fellowship enabled Harry to travel to leading areas of timber manufacturing and design in the Northern Hemisphere, where he was able to meet with professionals from forestry and manufacturing, design, research and education. The grant was used on Harry's project 'The Potential for Underutilised Timber in the Built Environment' and enabled him to investigate and bring back new ideas, learnings and insights which he developed into this report.

12:00pm 25 Nov 2020

The University of Queensland (UQ) held a free Leaders of Influence Webinar on 25 November 2020: 'Assessing fire safety of timber - a 21st century building material'. Hosted by the UQ's School of Civil Engineering, the webinar showcased the state of the art fire safety research of timber products, unravelled some myths about the fire performance of wood products and discussed the challenges arising from building with timber. This webinar featured UQ’s Dr Felix Wiesner, who has been involved in large scale timber fire research in multiple countries.

To view recording click here.

10 months 2 weeks ago

The Queensland Government Department of Agriculture & Fisheries (DAF) scientists working with the Future Timber Hub, at the DAF Salisbury Research Facility, are highlighted in the article "New mass-panel product research aims to optimise connection design, performance" on page 8 of the latest edition of Timber & Forestry Enews, Issue 633. DAF scientists are currently involved in three areas of research within the Future Timber Hub – optimising wood-based, mass-panels for Australian building systems; the impact of continuous drying on engineered wood; and the structural behaviour of reinforced timber composite products.

See Hub Projects:

10 months 3 weeks ago

In 2019, Harry Mills, ARC Future Timber Hub funded PhD student at UQ, was awarded a Gottstein Fellowship. The fellowship enabled Harry to travel to leading areas of timber manufacturing and design in the Northern Hemisphere, where he was able to meet with professionals from forestry and manufacturing, design, research and education. The grant was used on Harry's project 'The Potential for Underutilised Timber in the Built Environment' and enabled him to investigate and bring back new ideas, learnings and insights which he has developed into a report. This Gottstein Fellowship Report by Harry Mills, on Underutilised Timber (UUT) Acceptance through North America and Europe, covers the findings from this research project.

9:00am 15 Oct 2020

The 6th CLT large-scale fire test for the Future Timber Hub Project "Exploring the self-extinguishment mechanism of engineered timber in full-scale compartment fires" was live streamed on the morning of Thursday 15th October at the QFES Live Fire Training facilities in Whyte Island. The test involved a compartment with two exposed CLT surfaces and a wood crib as fuel load.

1 year 6 days ago

The Suspended Remnants - Timber Pavilion, which received a prestigious Good Design Award Gold Accolade in the Engineering Design category of the 2020 Good Design Awards has made front cover in the Timber Forestry Enews - 17 September 2020 issue 626.

This issue also highlights the Future Timber Hub in an article, pg5, showcasing the work done by the Salisbury Research Facility team, "CLT panels project further strengthens confidence in mass timber construction”.

1 year 2 weeks ago

The winners of Australia’s peak international design awards – the highest honour for design and innovation in the country were announced on the 9 September 2020 during the 2020 Good Design Week.

The Suspended Remnants - Timber Pavilion, which is a structure created from a collaboration between two ARC Future Timber Hub Projects, Alternative uses for under-valued sawmill products in innovative timber structures and Prefabrication and digital fabrication strategies for large-scale timber construction, received a prestigious Good Design Award Gold Accolade in the Engineering Design category in recognition for outstanding design and innovation.

1 year 4 weeks ago

Future Timber Hub Chief Investigators, Dr Joe Gattas & Kim Baber, showcase the University of Queensland's School of Civil Engineering & School of Architecture in this UQ film "Can my walls talk?". The fillm has had over 56,000 views since its launch in August 2020. It demonstrates how The University of Queensland is at the forefront of two Future Timber Hub Projects that aim to reduce wastage and emissions in the timber industry, while adding value, knowledge and character at the same time. These Hub projects are:

2:00pm 3 Sep 2020

ARC Future Timber Hub Chief investigator, Dr Juan Hidalgo, was guest speaker at this Mass Timber Webinar held on 3 Sept 2020 organised by IFE Australia.

Dr Hidalgo's presentation provided an overview of critical research questions that need to be addressed for enabling a fire safety design framework for timber buildings. Highlights from the research developed by The University of Queensland within the ARC Future Timber Hub will be presented. See Hub Project: Exploring the self-extinguishment mechanism of engineered timber in full-scale compartment fires

1 year 1 month ago

Research projects and future pathways at the ARC Future Timber Hub were highlighted in the Timber Forestry Enews - 23 July 2020 issue, pg 3.

This issues cover story also highlights the Salisbury Research Facility "Welcome to Wood World: A 'Theme Park' for Research". Project Investigator, Rob McGavin, cover photo - middle, leads the Future Timber Hub Project "The optimisation of wood-based mass-panels for Australian building systems".

1 year 2 months ago

The latest large-scale CLT compartment fire test for the Future Timber Hub Project “Exploring the self-extinguishment mechanism of engineered timber in full-scale compartment fires” has been showcased on the ARC Research Highlights. There will be more large-scale compartment fire tests later this year!

1 year 2 months ago

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.

1 year 3 months ago

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.

1 year 3 months ago

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.

1 year 4 months ago

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.

1 year 4 months ago

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".

1 year 5 months ago

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".

1 year 6 months ago

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.

1 year 6 months ago

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.

1 year 6 months ago

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".