Ep 144 - Evolution, sustainability & optimisation of timber

Adam Jones (00:11): 

Okay. We'll kick it off. Well, thanks so much for coming on the podcast, Damien. I think it's been a long time coming. Can you start by telling us a little bit about yourself, who you are, and cantilever as well. 

Damian Hadley (00:23): 

I'm going to start by saying there's moments in your life, Adam, where just something clicks, something changes, and you're going down a direction and you don't quite know where you're going, and then you veer off and you never look back. And that happened to me in 1996 when I came to Australia on a working holiday visa, and I opened up the yellow pages, got to L, had four interviews for job offers, and started work the next day. And I got home that night, and I looked at INE and I said, what is this place? I was doing postgrad work at the University of Toronto. I graduated from the University of Waterloo with an undergrad in basically structural engineering. It wasn't civil engineering, of course. I was doing post-grad at Toronto with MP Collins, if anyone knows who MP Collins is. Oh my god, I can't underestimate how amazing that was. He did the modified compression field theory and introduced in the Canadian code in 1984. Adam Modified Compression field theory was introducing to the Australian standards last year. 

Adam Jones (01:40): 

Gotcha. Yeah, I don't know what it is still. 

Damian Hadley (01:43): 

Yeah, for 30 years, I knew about that in 1994, and it was introduced into Australia 30 years later. That's a representation of how slow the industry works. 

(01:55): 

So, I dropped out of that postgrad work. That was a tough decision. I knew that was a big deal to have MP Collins as my supervisor, and that's Veo as well. They both developed that theory, doing some amazing postgrad work, but it really wasn't for me. I just wanted to work. And the reason I went to UFT was half because I couldn't get a job in Toronto because there was very little work. And to come here and then get a job on a working holiday, a visa in one day, that's what I was like. Oh my. 

Adam Jones (02:29): 

How many calls did you make in the phone? In the phone book? 

Damian Hadley (02:32): 

Probably about 10. 

Adam Jones (02:34): 

Yeah. 

Damian Hadley (02:34): 

Got to L got to L. 

Adam Jones (02:37): 

Ah, Wonder. Gotcha. Yeah. 

Damian Hadley (02:40): 

Yeah. So, I started at Lowen Hook. My supervisor or boss I guess was Roger Hook. I knew it at the time, but that was a special experience as well. He was an amazing still around and amazing, amazingly generous engineer. I look back now at all the little things that he told me, and at the time I kind of didn't realize what he was saying, but I look back now and said, oh my God. He was saying this. One of the ones was he, I went to his desk one day with some preliminary sketches that we did with pencil, and he said, oh, where's your eraser? And I said, oh, my erase fits back at the desk. And he goes, oh, Damien, you need to bring your eraser. You always need to change things. And I was like, oh yeah, of course if I make a mistake, I got to change, blah, blah, blah. But I actually realised decades later that he was saying, that's a life philosophy. 

(03:32): 

He was saying, you always got to be available to change. If you find somebody's opinion that's better than yours, make a change. And that is definitely a life philosophy. He might have influenced that, but that is definitely a life philosophy. If I hold something really dear to me and somebody gives me something that shuts that down and says, this is better, I'll change. 

Adam Jones (03:57): 

Yeah, that's such a good philosophy and the excitement around it. And that's where always, if you've got the philosophy you have, it's an exciting thing to realize that there's something you're seeing in your own thought process or something. And that's probably just maybe a common trait of innovators in general. So you were one of the first consultancies to really embrace mass timber in Australia. So tell us a bit how your timber journey started and what you into this space and really interested in it. 

Damian Hadley (04:34): 

My dad was a pseudo builder, and I spent my childhood renovating houses. So, I think my claim to fame when I was 17, I don't have how many claims to fame when you're 17? Was that I had lived in 17 houses when I was 17 years old, and that's because we renovated our houses and moved, renovated and moved. So, I don't know exactly how old I was, but I remember from a very young age, hammering bits of timber together and everything. This is in Canada, everything's timber framed. And I grew up in the country. Timber was everywhere. We went to Algonquin for summer and spent three, four weeks amongst the spruce trees. Nothing. The smell of spruce, when I go into a job site and smell cedar or timber, it just takes me right back to my childhood. So, I was like, yes, I love the smell of cedar. 

(05:34): 

So yeah, I've kind of grew up with timber at cantilever. I try to remain material agnostic. In other words, I think there's benefits to having timber. I think there's benefits to having concrete. I think there's benefits to having steel. I don't think we should be fixated on one material necessarily, but we do have a timber first, and that is that we should, and the reason we have that is not so much that we should always be using timber, but because you should be looking at options in every project. So don't think that everything's up for grabs. And I suppose that's what cantilever specialty is. Cantilever specialty is that particularly early involvement. So integrated project delivery, early involvement. I love it when I go and meet the client with the architect and they're meeting the client for the first time. So that early involvement I think is critical. 

(06:36): 

That's what we specialize in. I think a lot of structural engineers want the structure to be resolved before they get the project, but our specialty is starting with something blurry with the architect and co-creating it as a team. And I think that's not, I know in other parts of that world, that's quite a popular methodology in Australia. It's not. And a lot of architects don't know what that means, I'm going to say. And the architects that we work with know exactly what that means and know how to take advantage of that, how to ask us the right questions, how to get us involved, and how to represent us or how to represent the team through that development. In fact, I would say it would be rare for a project done like that not to be successful. Success is a subjective word, but yeah, it's rare for it not to be successful. 

(07:40): 

And successful means fundamentally achieving the client's expectations or matching or exceeding the client's expectations. That's generally what we classify as success, whatever that means, right? It's not all about price. It doesn't always have to be about price. There's always other matrix, always other parts of that matrix that people, I remember interviewing one of the clients, and I said, at the end of this is right at the very beginning, I said, at the end of the project, what do you want this build to give you? And she said, I just want to be able to experience nature. So, where's the conversation about cost? Where's the conversation about project delivery? Where's the conversation about a smooth build or less stress? It's just about being in touch with nature. So, it's interesting what people say when you ask them, 

Adam Jones (08:35): 

Right? Well, for some reason the idea of quality in a different product in different contexts, we're all aware of it. The laptop, I've got another laptop, I'll know the different specs in laptops and happy to pay a premium in it. And same with phones, an iPhone versus an old, but for some reason, sometimes in buildings, we just seem to look at it and just think cost per square meter is the only thing. But we're talking about an entirely different product when we're talking about having nature in the building and seems like that client appreciated that, and some do, 

Damian Hadley (09:12): 

Right? Yeah, that's right. And that's not what I expected. And had I never asked, I would've never known. But going back to timber, I dunno, you might know better than me, but I actually think cantilever did the first class one building CLT building in Australia when we did Boronia Road at Bellevue Hill back in, it started in 2017. We did it with a, so my understanding is that is the first CLT class one building in Australia. I don't think that's globally, but in Australia. And it was just after XLam, you might know better than me, just after XLam moved to Australia from New Zealand. 

Adam Jones (09:58): 

Gotcha. Yeah. What was I in 2017, I was at WSP, I think I was still, yeah, so I was very young then, but was probably just going to seminars and dreaming of one day getting into the timber industry at that stage. But think that's true. 

Damian Hadley (10:14): 

Did you do timber when you were at WSP or 

Adam Jones (10:17): 

I was banging down the doors of the directors, basically. So, I did it when I was at uni at Monash, just got a grad program at WSP, which just happy to just get whatever I could at that stage. And then 

(10:28): 

I was just banging down the doors, and I did work on 55 South Bank Boulevard. So, the building strengthening of that, it was concrete but adjacent. But then, yeah, I met networks and it got into wood solutions after that basically. But WSP not a hell of a lot of timber. 

Damian Hadley (10:44): 

Yeah. So why were you interested in timber?

Adam Jones (10:47): 

Well, interestingly, my lecturer, Colin Papini at Monash, so I was in my fourth year, and everyone's geared up for concrete and steel, and he said, the future is going to be in sustainable building materials. So, I was like, all right. He said, someone should do it, have a crack at CLT. And I put up my hand, and I was the first student to do it for their final year project for that undergraduate course. Yeah, it was a lot of self-learning, picking up FP Innovations books and building spreadsheets, doing all of that to do it. And I've probably got everything wrong in the final year project. But yeah, just self-learning. And that's where it started for me. And then I just kept trying to get back into that, banging down the doors, anything I could to follow that path from that point onwards. 

Damian Hadley (11:33): 

Well, that FP Innovations book was extraordinary. It was crazy, 

Adam Jones (11:39): 

Crazy, Right? 

Damian Hadley (11:39): 

Yeah. I mean, crazy. That was eight, nine years ago that that was before CLT was really even in the lexicon, I think of most people. How bizarre is that 

Adam Jones (11:51): 

800 pages or whatever as well, right? It's like, I don't even know it goes that deep, but yeah. 

Damian Hadley (11:57): 

Yeah, it solved all the, yeah, I mean, it was great at solving all the basics. It had the basics, principles solve the fact that if you put two bits of timber, because timber shrinks longitudinally, but not tangentially. So, if you put the CLT, you would've thought that if you did cross laminated, oh my God, how does it cater for the shrinkage? So, it talked about all that. It knew about all of that, right? And that was the first question that we asked those fundamental questions about, does this thing even work as a thing, right? 

Adam Jones (12:28): 

Yeah. 

Damian Hadley (12:28): 

It was like, yes, we've got that all sorted. We knew what it was. It seemed to, and I love asking questions. And it seemed to, every time I turned to Layla and said, Layla, what about this? It's like, don't worry, David, don't worry here. FP Innovations has the answer here. I was like, oh yeah, good. So, you go home at night thinking as engineers do, you're thinking about how does this thing not work? How does it fail? Where does it fail? That's how we're taught to think, right? Think about 

(12:54): 

What are the weaknesses? The weaknesses or the things that it doesn't say, right? I love reading brochures and imagining what it says is great, but what does it not say? Because the secrets in the not saying, and that's the tough, I mean, as an engineer, that you're trained to think that way. So, it's like, what is this not telling us? And I think that's the, but FP Innovations had so much, so we did the same thing as a matter of fact, what we did, Adam, I'm not sure whether you're aware of this, but we took AS1684, what an amazing brochure. I could talk about AS1684 forever. We took AS1684 and used it as a framework and completely adapted AS1684 and made a parallel version of it for CLT. 

Adam Jones (13:40): 

That's crazy. That's so good. Yeah. 

Damian Hadley (13:42): 

So that took us about five years to do, and we probably did exactly what you did. We're working side by side, doing exactly the same thing, help. We don't share knowledge ever. But anyway, we're all kind of precious about sharing it, but not sharing. So, we had Excel spreadsheets going, we produced, we still have and still use some amazing grasshopper scripts. So put your building into Rhino, run the Grasshopper script, does all your connections, all your screws, tie down all of that. Even sizes some of the members I dreamed of taking this all the way to producing a full build that you could just press a button with all the programs you've got. 

(14:32): 

I don't want to highlight any particular program, but let's just grab EABs. It has a button that you press when you want concrete design. It has a button that you press for steel design. It's like, where's the button for timber? It doesn't have it. It's not that button. Maybe CLT toolkit will do toolbox do that. But yeah, I just think we need that button somewhere to have that as a thing. And it still doesn't exist as a thing yet. And I think, yeah, I suppose it tells you a lot about the industry, but we need that button. But can I just go back to A684 for a minute? 

Adam Jones (15:12): 

Yeah, please. 

Damian Hadley (15:12): 

I can talk about it forever. So, I've yet to meet Boris who put it together. Does he do it by himself? I don't really know, but there is so much subtle genius in that brochure. So, it's a construction manual, it's a cookbook. I know New Zealand has a similar one. Does that as a thing exist anywhere else in the world? You can give that to anyone older than say 15, and they can build a three-storey timber framed house. A little bit of grunt work, right? 

Adam Jones (15:43): 

Yeah. 

Damian Hadley (15:44): 

Isn't that 

Adam Jones (15:45): 

It's amazing. Extraordinary. It's crazy. Well, it's like, yeah, I mean, if we have that in commercial buildings, it changed everything. These same, we're solving these exact same problems on every project in just very small change sort of ways. But if that cookbook approach, and I guess you could still always do bespoke if you wanted to, but you've got the cookbook approach for those who want to do it that way, right? 

Damian Hadley (16:13): 

Yeah. And what I love about timber framing, I'm going to say, and we're not talking about mass timber here, by the way. Sorry about that. But timber framing is A684 is a minimum standard. So, you could do a single-storey building in an N two wind classification, a wall that's 2.4 meters high, could be 90 by 35 studs at 600 centers. I've never done that. I don't know that anyone's ever done that, but you can. So, it's a minimum Australian standard cantilever has its, we have three different versions of that. So, we have what is really a minimum standard. So that is, for example, our wall that we just described. We'll do 92 by fours at four 50 centers. That's the minimum that cantilever does. And then we have a mid-range version, and we do that for floor joists and everything. Then we have a mid-range version, and then we have what is a 10-star version, like passive house version. So, we basically have adapted, we've adapted 1684 for these three different versions, and at some point, you need to suss out the client to understand where you think they fit. 

Adam Jones (17:25): 

Gotcha, yeah 

Damian Hadley (17:26): 

Are you wanting one version, one version two, version three, version three, which is passive house is pretty, that's pretty easy to comprehend because people who come to you and want Pacif pass, they want high standards, right? High quality. So, you're talking about one 40 by 45 LVLs at four 50 centers, fully insulated, fully sealed, blah. So, there's no reason to go beyond that, which is lovely. You have this barrier. So, you have this barrier that's passive as and then, or this boundary, or then you have the boundary that's A684, which is a minimum standard, and you've got to live in there somewhere. So, I think having those two boundaries, then we know where to define people. And the fourth one of course, is the CLT version that we have as well. 

(18:10): 

And Remember that CLT version is for a lot of it. So, the wall frame for example. So, we've done quite a few hybrids now where we do timber stick framing for the walls and CLT for the floors and roof.

Adam Jones (18:27): 

Oh, amazing. Yeah, 

Damian Hadley (18:28): 

Because you're over-engineering the CL LT walls generally, unless you're using them to cantilever or do some other things. But generally, yeah, you're the walls. But the wonderful thing about this little chart is that if you think about embedded carbon, if you think about our desire to be net 0 16 84, and this is the dilemma that you have with projects, 1684 has the least amount of material, 

(18:52): 

Right? 

(18:53): 

Totally. 

(18:53): 

So every step away from the minimum is more material, more embedded? Well, it depends how you Yeah, it depends how 

Adam Jones (19:01): 

The assumptions come in, right? It just goes wildly. Yeah, gone. Yeah. 

Damian Hadley (19:07): 

So, you've got to be careful not to over-engineer or not to choose the wrong spec for the wrong person. So, the minimum standard, which I think is still pretty good, is usually applicable for most people. And a lot of times we say, well, the floor joists, I think the floor joists, I think this client would be particularly upset if the floor joists were a little bit bouncy. So, let's up expect the floor joists. So, we have versions of the floor joist depending on how we feel the client is and what their expectations are with that. 

(19:47): 

But I want to mention something else. Want to mention something else. I think we've got a missed opportunity here. When we come to mass timber. I think we've missed an opportunity and that opportunity, is it possible to question our assumptions about building when we come to mass timber, is it possible to reevaluate what we think is normal? And I think timber is a wonderful opportunity to do that. And what I'm talking about here is the fact that we are apparently pathologically obsessed with big column free spaces. 

(20:35): 

Isn't there an opportunity to say, yes client, we can do timber instead of concrete, however we want to introduce more columns because it's way more efficient. Or yes, client, we can do timber, but the floors will be a little bit more bouncy. We use timber as the opportunity to kind of question things and let things go just in order to become more efficient. Because 

Adam Jones (21:14): 

Question, 

Damian Hadley (21:15): 

When people come to you and say, I want to use timber, first of all, we say, well, why do you want to use timber that that's not a don't do it. That's a stupid question. I need to understand why you do it. Right? Totally. And I actually think those people that come to you and say, I don't want to do a concrete build, I want to do a mass timber build, I actually think they just have the mindset of being open to anything. Totally. So that's the time when you say, do you mind having columns on a six-meter grade instead of a 10-meter grade? And do you mind if a desk is in the middle of a room, and somebody walks by you that it moves a little bit? Because we can make it not move, but we can let it go a little bit, 

Adam Jones (21:55): 

Right? A hundred percent. And then you just take 'em through. I know not everyone's in Brisbane, but if you go, you're going to be more columns, but this is the end product, and then you go through 25 King Street or library at the dock and they're Wow. And then you're take 'em through another office, which might be like a 12 by nine greet or something. It's less columns. But to your point, Damien, it's like you can copy the extra columns if it's a different product. Again, if it's a beautiful finish and it's a beautiful timber, timber column next to your desk, fantastic. Right? 

Damian Hadley (22:27): 

That's right. I get to see the timber; I get to experience the timber. Well, the living building challenge has biophilia, right? It's one of its leaves. And that's the idea or, and beauty as well. So that's the idea of being in touch with nature. So yeah, why not have more columns? And we have a column in our office. We have a column right in the middle of our office, and I have asked people when they left the office, just people visiting, did you notice that we had a column in the office? No, they don't notice. Exactly. Exactly. They don't notice. Exactly. So, what does it matter? 

Adam Jones (23:00): 

It's a good one. And question the requirements sometimes, and I'm going back to the light frame stuff, and originally in Canada where a lot of light 3, 4, 5 stories is light frame, I believe, if I'm not mistaken. And I don't think that's really kicked off here. So, what's the blocker for that market being kicked off? Or actually, have you done a few, three, four story buildings, or are there inherent blockers for light frame basically taking that next step? 

Damian Hadley (23:33): 

I don't think it's in the Australian psyche. I do not think it is. People say, oh, but what about fire? It's the same with mass timber. When mass timber first came to Australia, it's like everyone asked, what about fire? And what about water? 

(23:48): 

Right? Oh, water comes into the building. Well, just a second. Water shouldn't be coming into your building, first of all. So why is water coming into a building normalized? I don't quite understand that, but even during construction, but there's lots of research now about the fact that if you let it dry, if you let the timber dry out, if it gets wet during construction, mass timber, if you let it dry out, it's fine. Plywood is different. But mass timber is fine as long as it gets to dry out. So yeah. Where were we with that? Oh, timber. Yeah. So, fire, in fact, we just recently did a paper with Philip Oldfield and others, and we took the Launceston building that they did down in Tasmania, which is a, I'm going to say eight story mass timber building. 

(24:36): 

And We did a comparison. We wanted to see whether we could get net zero on this building. So, what we did was we took that building, and we had an amazing Revit model, and we could completely do the EPD and epic carbon calculations based on that model. Then we did a concrete version to see what the embedded carbon would be for that. And then we said, okay, how low can we go? That was the mantra that we, through the 12 months of meetings and research that we did, it's like, how low can we go? In other words, how can we hit net zero on this building? And yeah, the outcomes of that. It's one of those things, Adam, where you go into these, you go into these meetings and you don't want to have any preconceived ideas because you want the team to, you want the design tools. 

(25:26): 

Yeah, well, you want the design to emerge from the team's knowledge, right? Because I think we rely too much on the brilliance of individuals. I don't think that's the right, there's lots of research to suggest that group intelligence is way more powerful than individual people and more reliable. In fact, then you're not relying on this one individual person of brilliance. But one of the things that emerged, which made a big difference, was the fact that we changed the top three stories to timbers stick framing. 

(26:00): 

That was on the idea, but I think we could do eight stories in just timbers stick framing. But that was the idea of the fact that three stories is pretty easy to do in a commercial building in timbers stick framing. But I actually think, and I had this idea right when that happened, I had this idea, it's like, hey, we've got to go around the world promoting that every high rise building in the world, the top three stories has to be timbers stick framing. We know we can do it. So, if we want to hit net zero, top three stories of every high rise has to be stick framing 

Adam Jones (26:29): 

The same 

Damian Hadley (26:30): 

Yeah, that's right. It's easy. Yeah, you've got it. I mean, it's easy. Unless you start thinking deeply, it's easy. But I still think fire, especially in Australia, fire will be the big barrier. 

(26:46): 

There's lots of nuance about all of that, and I think all the fire engineers out there will say, yes, we can do it. Or maybe they'll say no. Especially for type A construction, timber framing is tough, but we do mass timber, so why can't we do timber stick framing? Yes, you have to fire red mass. Timber has fr ls, right? So, it does have a fire rating, whereas timber stick framing generally doesn't, I'm going to say. So, you'd have to wrap it in fire check still. But yeah, I thought that was an amazing outcome. I would never have thought that would be the outcome of that, but it did make a significant difference to our net zero calculation. 

Adam Jones (27:27): 

Well, tell us a bit more about that. It's a really interesting project. So, you mentioned, I think Phil from New South University, new South Wales, and yeah, it was an intense, that's a question everyone wants to know is what's the difference if we're optimizing sustainability, how much can we do it? Can we get to net zero? Tell us about the project 

Damian Hadley (27:49): 

I should start by saying this. I wanted to be incredibly fair on concrete. So, I wanted to do a fair comparison, and I can't remember who it was, but it might be the Green Council of Australia has a typical EPD calculation for a concrete building and is, I think it's a thousand kilograms of C2 per square meter, right? So, they say it ranges from 500 to a thousand or just over a thousand. So, when we did our concrete calculation, our building was 520, right? So, it was right at the bottom. So, we couldn't have been more fair. 

(28:41): 

Absolutely. I didn't want to exaggerate. Oh, instead of the slabs are super thin, I think they're one 70 thick concrete post tension. I did everything that I could do for it to be fair, because I thought I would get criticized if I over-engineered it, right? If I said the slab, oh no, the slabs have to be 500 millimeters thick and suddenly we're at a thousand kilograms per square meter as opposed to 500. So, I thought we were very fair. So going from the concrete, so the concrete was 520, I don’t know if these numbers will resonate with people, but 520 was for the concrete, the built building was 448 

Adam Jones (29:20): 

On top of in addition to the, so then you add that on top of the five 20, 

Damian Hadley (29:25): 

No, that's 448 was the built building. So, the concrete option was five 20, the built building was 4 48. And when we changed a bunch of different things, we got it down to 3, 3 7. So, 337. So that was our first stretch assignment. And the other stretch assignments that we did, the structure never changed. That was the basic stretch assignments. So, all the other stretch assignments were changing to straw or using other materials, reducing glass. That makes a big difference as well. Didn't realize that, but reducing the overall glazed area. So, this is just, remember, this is just the upfront, total upfront embedded cost, not the operational cost as well. So here we go. We went from 5 24, 4 8, 3, 3 7 simply by doing a few simple things. Adam, this is another thing that I think we're addicted to, and I'm so reluctant to mention this because 

Adam Jones (30:25): 

Go for it. 

Damian Hadley (30:28): 

Every mass timber building it seems, has these diagonal struts, these beautiful glorious diagonal struts. And when you see the diagonal struts, everyone thinks timber. But what we found is those diagonal struts have so much steel in the connections that they kill the CO2 calculations. So, it's like you might as well do them as just steel struts rather than timber because of the connections. So, we did change that, and I was reluctant to, but we changed the steel struts from, sorry, changed the diagonals from timber to just solid CLT wall panels. 

Adam Jones (31:06): 

Oh, wow. 

Damian Hadley (31:06): 

Just simplified the connections. And also, being a structural engineer, and I'm sure this is slightly intuitive, is the fact that the lateral stability works more at the bottom of the building than the top of the building, right? 

Adam Jones (31:19): 

Totally. 

Damian Hadley (31:19): 

So, we actually did long lengths of CLT walls at the bottom of the building and slowly reduced them as we went up to the building. So, the fact that top of the building only had a 1.7-meter wide CLT panel in it, that actually made a surprisingly big difference to the CO2 calculation because of the steel connections. And it's because we had the connections, we knew what the steel was because we had the BIM model of all the steel that we were able to directly calculate it, and I told them what the steel connections would be, which are just the little brackets from roto Blas bracket would be for the C LT wall panels. So that was another kind of questioning that I think we should do we really want these? Are we really wed into these diagonal braces? Can we move away from that? Well, 

Adam Jones (32:05): 

It's optimizing when you're optimizing purely for sustainability like you are, and then it just shows what you come up with innovative solutions like them 

Damian Hadley (32:14): 

Yup 

Adam Jones (32:15): 

Or even more basic, sometimes even the more basic is actually the more innovative or the simplest is turns out to be the, 

Damian Hadley (32:24): 

It's hard to do. Simple. 

Adam Jones (32:27): 

It's hard too hard. Yeah. And it's crazy to think we're doing these in body carbon targets a hundred percent. And then even when we do everything perfect, it just shows how hard the problem is in embodied carbon when we're trying to make a hundred percent reduction commitments. It's going to be a really hard journey to get there. And timber's not the only one, but it's like everything. I think sometimes it's a disconnect between how we're tracking recent demand and materials and then how hard it really is. Hey.

Damian Hadley (33:02): 

Yeah. Well, and the other thing, just tapping into that, the other thing is epic and EPDs are fundamentally different and there's a battle, I don't know if you know the battle, but 

Adam Jones (33:13): 

I know the battle very well in my existence for a while and I've got a strong opinions on it as 

Damian Hadley (33:18): 

Well. Right. Really? Okay, well I know transport is a big deal. It's the one, yep, yep, yep. The other thing is that we found that the reason that we did a forest of columns, and I shouldn't say a forest of columns, it's not like a forest of columns, but we desperately, I found out during that process, or we all found out that beams are the enemy here. Adam beams are the Enemy 

(33:46): 

Because of fire. There's so much redundancy in the beams. So, we're oversizing the beam on three sides. So, in that one condition where there's a fire, there's a tiny bit of timber left to hold the building up. So early on we said, we've got to get rid of these beams. They are the enemy. And that's where that's where we landed with introducing more columns. 

(34:11): 

And we have to remember, Adam, we have to remember that timber stick framing is a commodity. I was out on site yesterday and we were looking at a bit of LVL and we're kind of saying, so there was kind of four of us, and we all had a guess at where that bit of timber came from. It looked pretty Baltic pish, so I reckon it came from Scandinavia, but up until the Ukraine war, most of it came from Russia. But it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter where it comes from. We specify two 40 by 45 LVL on our drawings and two days later it's showing up on site 

(34:55): 

And we're agnostic to where it comes from. It's so commoditized. All that, the timbers stick framing industry, they did, I suppose this was developed in the US 200 over 200 years ago. It's like whoever thought that, okay, have, we're going to make two by fours, we're going to standardize all the sizing of these timbers. Whoever made that decision was a genius because we have that challenge in CLT or mass timber. It's not a commodity. Everyone produces a different product. So how do we procure that? How do we design for it and how to be procure it? And that I think is a complete and utter inefficiency in our system, especially in Australia,

Adam Jones (35:35): 

Hundred percent. And we tell from, yeah, go ahead 

Damian Hadley (35:38): 

So, what do we do from a design perspective? What do we do? And I think the standard thing, which is very disappointing in my mind, so inefficient. The standard thing that we do is we just produce generic drawings and make it a DNC during construction. So, the engineering design gets done twice effectively. And I just think putting, that's not the right way about it. I think we should be using integrated project delivery, choosing a manufacturer early, getting them involved in the project early and designing our solution around that product. It's desperately what I think the industry should be doing, but it doesn't benefit everyone anyway. It's a complicated question 

Adam Jones (36:24): 

Oh, a hundred percent agree with you. And it's better for everyone, especially the suppliers they have. Sometimes a project goes out, they've got an empty shift there and they've just got nothing running through the factory just because of organization. But if you've just got commodity products or even just a dual system where sometimes when there's an empty factory, you've got a commodity product going out that can be used in certain circumstances, but it's just the stop starting in the factories is what, just because when we're buying mass timber now you're also paying for those empty factory slots if you are using it. So as an industry, if we can keep those efficiencies up in the factory, DFMA, all that sort of stuff, then there's a lot of room to go down, I reckon, on pricing because of these inefficiencies. And I'm sure you see that all the time. Hey Damien, 

Damian Hadley (37:20): 

Well, I was at the prefab OZ conference a couple of weeks ago and everything was about pipeline and to see the factory, the upfront cost, we've got to sort that costing, we've got to sort that out, I think, and everyone talked about, I just got to keep my factory running because if I don't, it's a difference between a builder showing up to site, hammering bits of timber together and then putting a progress claim in with very little overheads. Hey, I've got to run a factory. I'm basically building, your entire house is built in my factory before I even get a penny from you. Right, exactly. I think the financing of all of that is very challenging. Needs to get sort of that. I think if MMC really wants to be become a thing, that is one of the major challenges that we need to overcome is how to finance that. I don't know. You don't see people's business plans. I'd love to see people's business plans or even if they have a business plan, but with the MMC, it's hard to understand what people's business plans are. And when they say, oh, we bought $50 million worth of equipment, it's like, so how long is it going to take you to pay that back your back? That seems like a lot of to me. 

Adam Jones (38:36): 

Yeah, a hundred percent. There's so much money I guess looking forward as well. The good news is every time there's a problem right now, it means it is a good thing because it can be solved and then the industry gets better. Whereas if other mature industries, everything's sort of solved, but there's so much low hanging fruit to be still picked off. So, what do you see Damien as the future of our industry going forward? With that in mind and everything, we said, what 

Damian Hadley (39:04): 

Did I mention? Integrated project delivery or integrated? 

Adam Jones (39:08): 

Well, tell us a bit about a bit about what that is as well, and for those who haven't heard of it and how can it actually be implemented? 

Damian Hadley (39:16): 

The tendency is for us as structural engineers to leave the architect to decide what the structure is, and then we come in at stage three and just deliver what the architect is and never question it, right? Never challenge them and never question it. And if we think that it's inefficient, if we think what the architect has given us is inefficient, we just go with it and no one knows any different about what it is, and we don't want to challenge the architecture, right? Because they've spent a lot of time getting there, and we want to be respectful of that. So we just deliver what they've given us. 

(39:49): 

I use this word in the most positive way that I can. The structural engineers become victims to the design, right? Because we just need to fit the structure into what we've been given by the architecture. And the DA process drives that as well. They don't want to spend money without knowing they're going to get a DA. But with integrated project delivery, integrated design, it's all about getting the team early before you get the DA and going through the process, having a blurry vision of what the architecture is and developing it together. Because remember, there's two ways to design. Well, there's true way to design, and that is let the architect just do the architecture and we just become victims to the design. But I think that's so inefficient, and I'm pathologically efficient driven, so that's my issue that I need to deal with. But the thing is, at the beginning of the project, there's two ways to do the design and when we're involved early, and that is do you want to do a mass timber building, or do you want to do a concrete building? 

(40:40): 

Do you want to do a brick? Do you want to do steel, whatever, choose the material and then evolve the design around the material that you're choosing, right? That's the one way. The other way is to come up with a design and then evolve the structural engineering solution to suit that design. And I think where the challenge is, is that people bring us buildings that are absolutely look like a concrete building and say, we just want to make this timber. Now. It's like, well, okay, but do you want to start again? And when we usually lose jobs then, because they say, but Demi, you guys are timber experts. Just do the design. Your timber experts just make this work. And it's like I say, no, that's not how timber works. And they said, well, we're going to find someone that does, and sure enough, somebody does it and gets built and blah, blah and good on them, whatever. But that's me being pathological in this way. I was like, that's not the right way to do it. We should be involved 

Adam Jones (41:32): 

Then a bad story end if there's a bad, and then those stories, which it's a timber shoehorned into a concrete building where it just blows out in costs, then there's just bad stories that go out. So, it's like, yeah, 

Damian Hadley (41:46): 

Yeah, you're not doing anyone any favors by allowing that to happen. I suppose. And by the way, if you don't want to be challenged, don't ring me, I'm going to say. But yeah, so getting involved early, starting with a blurry vision, understanding what you want to do and what the matrix is for the success of the building. Do you want net zero? Do you want timber? Do you want steel? Do you want concrete? What's the material that you want to see? What's the biophilic aspects? Is this living building challenge? But integrated design originated, I think every project that is CLT, and mass timber should be integrated design because it should be developed as a team together. I don't think one person should be controlling as the master builder. One person should be controlling the whole thing. I think a team, and there's so much knowledge, Adam, like structural engineering, I believe is the most domain rich industry or profession that exists, right? 

(42:42): 

There's so much know, even in my lifetime, back when I was 30, I had this naive idea that by the time I'm 50, I'm going to know everything and that's it. And then I'm just going to smooth sail for the rest of it. I've now decided that I have to live to 300, and I still probably won't know everything, but I mean, that's why I love it. That's why I love the challenge of understanding everything and getting all of that information. But what I'm saying is that one, not one person, we've got to work as a team here. Not one person can control this. And I think the other thing about integrated design is that there's a hierarchy that exists in designs at the moment. And whether that be project led or sorry, architect led or project manager led or perhaps client led, integrated design is about an ecosystem where there's no hierarchy as such. 

(43:30): 

So, everyone has the ability to contribute and especially the ability to contribute across domains. So, if the mechanical engineer presents something that doesn't seem right, you have every right to say, but what about something else without offending them? Or just because you think that or is the mechanical system interfering with the structure in such a way that there might be a different mechanical system that can come up and that works with architecture, works with hydraulics, works with everything. If you're sitting at a room and it's open discussions and having a good facilitator in that environment is key to it. A facilitator who's agnostic to the outcome I think is really important. Somebody who doesn't have a vested bias to the design is where the power is in terms of creating that. So integrated design, I think living, building challenge, sustainable buildings, mass timber should all be integrated design. It's not a thing in Australia because there's not a lot of trust. I believe we could talk about trust forever, but I think and setting up that ecosystem is amazingly complicated, and you've got to get the right team together. And that's really hard. How do you get a team of 20 people that you all where everyone trust each other? I don't even know that. 

Adam Jones (44:44): 

Yeah, 

Damian Hadley (44:45): 

That would really exist with, 

Adam Jones (44:47): 

Yeah, that's an amazing one, Dan. I mean that trust, that trust thing. It's like, and that culture of no gotchas and looping back to the first thing you said in this podcast of being not excited, if there's something you're not doing right, getting really appreciative of the feedback that there's a better idea out there. I'm not assuming that we're all for products and knowing whatever solution we put forwards got to be open, 

Damian Hadley (45:12): 

Got to be open to change. Absolutely. Do you know what? When we did this amazing living building challenge building in Taree, first Steps count, and Caroline Pitcock was the facilitator, an amazing facilitator and really open and engaging with everyone. We used a tree that was cut down from the site trees, five of them to hold up the building. That would not happen in any other environment other than the integrated design environment where there were 10 people there wanting this to happen. And if it didn't work, no one's going to get blamed here. Everyone's going to be supportive of each other on this is the decision we're making. It's not anyone's responsibility. Let's do the best we can and make this happen. I do not believe; I absolutely do not believe that that could occur outside of integrated design. Do not believe it. Could not occur, could not. We went to the opening ceremony and there were 20 of us consultants kind of walking around the building, and I walked around proud as I love to be, and I felt like I own that building. Adam. And I looked around and I said, I reckon there's 20 people who feel exactly like I do. 

Adam Jones (46:23): 

That's awesome. Well, Damien, it's been my favorite past. 

Damian Hadley (46:27): 

I got to say one more thing, Adam, 

Adam Jones (46:29): 

Go. Go ahead, mate. Go ahead. 

Damian Hadley (46:31): 

Caroline said this to me the other day, and it has now encouraged me so deeply. She said to me, Damian, there is no better time in history for you to be alive. She goes, there's so much opportunity. 

Adam Jones (46:51): 

That is beautiful. That's beautifully said. And yeah, I guess there's always different ways to look at the world, be a hundred percent right. We're lucky for who we are, so I appreciate that. Final comment for us then. No, Damian, thank you. Well, mate, I'll tell you on the podcast my favorite ones where we have questions. Sometimes you need questions for some guests and follow a script almost. Sometimes you just don't even look at the questions and you forget what we actually had, and you just chat away and see where the conversation goes. It was definitely one of those, so thank you for such an amazing podcast. That was a lot of fun, mate. 

Damian Hadley (47:26): 

Yeah, thanks Adam. 

Adam Jones (47:27): 

Long time coming 

Damian Hadley (47:28): 

And good luck with the future, Adam. I know that you're moving in different places now. It's very exciting. I believe that your world of the CLTToolbox will be the answer to the non-commoditisation of CLT, right? Because although we don't have, because you can just press a button and it'll change suppliers, and I think that that's the tool we need. That is the tool we need to combat the fact that we don't have consistency across the market in terms of the product itself. So good luck with that. Adam, you've done such a great job. I'm really looking forward to where you are in a couple of years’ time, or even 20 years’ time, 50 years’ time, and we're 300 years old. We'll do this,