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Described by its architects, Melling:Morse as "A two bedroom house on a tiny, wedge-shaped section separating the harbour view and it’s street frontage," The Wedge was a NZ Home of the year finalist in 2006 and awarded a Residential Architectural Excellence Award in 2006 Timber Design Australasia

A much awarded project, the Savill Building - the visitor centre at the Savill Garden, Windsor Great Park - has weathered gracefully, integrating, as planned, into the landscape.

Wind power is renewable and more sustainable than fossil fuel generated power - however, it still has a significant carbon footprint owing to the materials used during the fabrication and erection of the turbine. Making a 100m tower from wood is one way of reducing that footprint....

The World Conference on Timber Engineering (or WCTE as it's more conveniently referred to) begins the formal parts of the program in Auckland, NZ, on Monday July 16. The program for the day is listed below and you should be able to discover more about individual presentations by clicking through the embedded links. An event sponsor, WoodSolutions has aso sponsored a group of 15 engineering students from a wide range of Australian tertiary institutions to attend WCTE. There's a fascinating program and a range of abstracts with a topics to interest anyone concerned with design and building with timber. We'll be posting some of the highlights and interesting pieces here - but to keep in touch, please check out our Facebook page, linked below.

Occasionally last minute opportunities become available and we are delighted to be able to offer them to you. This one-off Q&A seminar, presented by Professor Motoi Yasumura, Shizuoka University, Japan, is titled, "The Japanese experience related to environmentally friendly, earthquake resistant timber construction". Don't be put off by the reference to earthquakes, there's a lot of content that's relevant to Melbourne too.

Every now and then a new product redefines the way things are made, or creates new possibilities for existing materials. UPM Grada, which looks just like ordinary plywood, but is easier to shape may be such a product.

300+ presentations from 36 countries, 450 abstracts, 3 days at the 9th World Conference on Timber Engineering in New Zealand. This is a must attend event for engineers, architects, building designers and other design and build professionals interested in wood and wood products.

The WoodSolutions Advanced Timber Building Systems Seminar included a visit to Forte, Lendlease's new CLT building in Melbourne's Docklands. Planet Ark's Chris Philpot attended wearing his Make It Wood hat and here are his notes and pics.

Both Andrew Waugh and Michael Green have visited Australia and presented to WoodSolutions audiences. Recently they joined forces to present to a Yale University audience. Their presentation is both interesting and inspirational - if you are interested in sustainable building development.

Emergency Architects Australia (EAA) is a not for profit organisation that helps to rebuild lives and support local communities in Australasia and the Pacific region. EAA aims to provide best practice technical expertise to find solutions to local problems which are often caused by natural or man-made disasters. WoodSolutions new case study is one of their recent projects.

With Lend Lease's Forte building in Victoria Harbour in Melbourne's Docklands hitting the news as the world's tallest timber residential building, we thought it time to look at some other iconic timber structures. Staying with the theme of extremes, the largest building seemed an obvious area of exploration. However, when evaluating the size of structures, what are the critical measures? Length, depth, height, volume? In this short item we'll look at US airdocks - a volume contender.

On of the challenges for sustainable design is to incorporate the environmental affects over the ful lifecycle of a product - and this includes after the end of its service life. Typically wood products are recycled, buried as landfill, increasingly burned as fuel and sometimes burned as waste. The question this report addresses is how long do wood products and parer continue to sequester carbon after they are buried as landfill? The answers have implications for life cycle analysis (LCA) reports and the competitive benefits of wood products over other materials.

How often are you offered the opportunity to tour the world's tallest residential wood building during the construction phase? This half day seminar is a unique opportunity to see CLT construction in action - and hear presentations from local and international experts.

A group of almost 100 representatives from ENGOs, the forest and wood industry, retailers, manufacturers and engineers gathered at Dockside in Sydney's Darling Harbour on Thursday 31 May to discuss and workshop the current state of wood products certification in Australia.

With the growing popularity of engineered wood products, increased knowledge of timber engineering is becoming a professional and business asset. Here's your opportunity to learn what the world leaders are doing.

London’s Stadthaus in Murray Grove has achieved global recognition as the world’s tallest wooden residential structure. Now Melbourne’s Victoria Harbour at Docklands is poised to take the mantle with Forté.

The first event of its kind in Australia, the Certification: Growing demand. Increasing confidence. National Wood Products Forum & Workshop 2012 is presented by Planet Ark and supported by the forest and wood products industry, Bunnings and Officeworks.

Chris Philpot, Planet Ark's Make It Wood campaign manager, reports from day five, the last day of the WoodSolutions UK Field tour.

Chris Philpot, Planet Ark's Make It Wood campaign manager, reports from day four of the WoodSolutions UK Field tour.

Chris Philpot, Planet Ark's Make It Wood campaign manager, reports from day three of the WoodSolutions UK Field tour.

Chris Philpot, Planet Ark's Make It Wood campaign manager, reports from day two of the WoodSolutions UK Field tour.

Chris Philpot, Planet Ark's Make It Wood campaign manager, reports from day one of the WoodSolutions UK Field tour.

A handy eighty page reference for architects, building designers or anyone requiring R-values of common timber framed structures. Download a free copy of R-values for Timber-framed Building Elements

Chris Philpot, Campaign Manager for Planet Ark's Make it Wood campaign has joined the WoodSolutions 2012 UK Field Tour. Chris will be blogging his experiences and we'll reproduce them here. So, sit back and prepare to be an armchair participant in the Tour. Here's Chris' intro posting...