Ep 145 - Mass timber 2.0

Adam Jones (02:31):

Well thanks so much for coming on the podcast. Robbie, can you start by telling us a little bit about yourself, who you are and what you do at Vistech?

Robbie Svars (02:45):

Yeah, so probably the simplest part of that to answer is that I work right now as the general manager at Vistech. Structural Engineers had quite a varied background. I worked in a fine linen department at Howard's for a while and I played in a band as you know, all that has given me probably a really varied perspective on a lot of things, which as much as going to uni and everything's great, I really now reflect on some of those other experiences too. And when you're younger you're thinking where am I going with my life? And I wish I could have told myself then that. Don't worry, it'll all come in handy when you get a bit older. But now probably to talk a bit more about what Vistech does, the key to this conversation is that we've been in Mass timber for 10 years now.

(03:52):

I'll be quite proud to say that we were really there when it started here in Australia. I remember reaching out to Robin, Jack who was running XLam, picked up the phone and was like, I want to learn more about your stuff. And he went, I'm in Melbourne right now. They were based in New Zealand and 10 minutes later I was down having a coffee with him and then two weeks later, Nathan Benbow and myself were on a plane to New Zealand and that just kicked that all off and ever since then, the rest is history a bit in that space. I think that I don't want to, we're not a mass timber engineering firm and in a little way, even structural engineering, we do structural engineering, but I really have a philosophy that structural engineering can often be seen as you do calculations and you create models and drawings and you put them out there to the world and you do what you do.

(05:02):

I look more and I think structural engineering is really fundamentally about making things happen, moving things from A to B and all that other stuff is the tools that we use and verify compliance for legislation and everything. So, when I think about our involvement in mass timber, it's really as much about the specifics of that. As much as it is about seeing something that, I mean firstly from a nerdy point of view, it's just such a wonderful thing to get involved in but also just to look and go. It could drive so much good for want of a better word, but sustainability, labor shortages, better quality buildings, all these things. And so, it's a bit of a vehicle to make things happen too for us. So that would be a bit of a summation I guess, about the essence of me and then and us and what we do. Yeah,

Adam Jones (06:19):

That's awesome man. I'm really keen to, so you call Robin Jack, what's the first project and it's pretty great. It’s quite an innovative step forward because no project’s going ahead in this product and then how does that happen? Is the use suggests it to the architect and I mean tied to that, is there still scope for the engineer to influence the products material option or is it always the other way around where it comes from the top down as opposed to the engineer?

Robbie Svars (06:52):

Yeah, I mean right now I had a joke with another, I think Nathan Bebo's been a guest on this podcast too. Even this ties back into what was the first project and as a segue, I think the first project, it could have been with Emma Mitchell Anglee or it could have been with Alex Osky and their tiny little granny flat thing, but either one of those was actually we did that with XLam and that was the first project delivered using Australian made CLT. Wow. So, we got Tyson, another one of the crew gave us a little plaque, which was great, and we've actually got the cardboard model that Emma Mitchell used to kind of do for their first project, so a little milestone, but one of our earlier projects, which is a bit of a leap in the deep and was 55 South Bank

(07:57):

And that very much talking about the client and suggesting the product for one, that's a really interesting project because it fundamentally would not have worked if it wasn't for mass timber. So when people talk about having to pay maybe a premium for sustainability, et cetera, there's a lot of business cases where actually mass timber can create projects purely on the commercial reasons alone and the feasibility, and that was a funny one, I'll get back to that mentioning of Nathan, he did an amazing job driving that project and sticking to that philosophy that we have and he already had it, we didn't have to teach it to him, but moving things from A to B and just doing what it takes a bit agnostic of what our specific role is to make that happen. But I said to him once, he probably won't remember, but he was like, that was amazing.

(09:03):

I'm like, one thing harder than doing a project like that is getting onto a project like that and getting a client who's going to be committed to do something as ambitious as something like that. So, in a way that is it a top-down thing? Very often there are architects who really want to bring it into what they do and seeing that evolve from probably a quite naive approach to it to now almost like there's a bit of a version 2.0 with mass timber and even smaller resi things. We're seeing some people really thinking about how to use it and take advantage of the differences rather than working against the differences to conventional construction. Had a great meeting with an architect and he was just talking about bringing out a lot of the finishes, this just skirting and stuff like that and not worrying about that and detailing things to really accentuate a much more simple organic aesthetic and we're like, oh wow, that's going to look great.

(10:20):

But likewise, he went, I'm just taking out a heap of trades, I'm letting the timber do that aesthetic work and I'm getting to a really cost neutral thing with conventional building if I really start integrating, I guess the aesthetic side with the overlay of the cost and leveraging up what mass timber can do. So, on one hand it's really great to see that sophisticated approach and not seeing it as a product or material substitution but seeing it as a holistic different approach to applying it and leveraging it. On the other hand too, we're kind of developing a thing where we can go a bit bottom up and for people, I hate using a system because people suddenly think that it's fully resolved, but offering more of a framework where things are put together a bit more so that there's not a heap of hurdles for every project's unique and you need to leave a bit of flexibility, but they can come and there's a bit more of a resolve typology that's going to suit their project or the business case again.

(11:57):

And in a way it sounds a bit innovative, but that's inherently what's happening in conventional construction already. People can just look at it and go, yep, that's going to be a post intern lab and I'm going to do this and this and this and there's all this inherent experience and everything that's been built up over the last 50 years. And so that thinking of going a bit bottom up is more just to address that inherent knowledge gap in the market at the moment and then ultimately, I guess give clients and people the decision makers at the top of I guess the guiding projects more confidence so they're not sort of starting off a project and going through stuff and just seeing a lot of gray areas. We won't solve all of them, but if we can bring those gray areas down a lot, it's less intimidating I guess making that step into mass timber.

Adam Jones (13:04):

Gotcha. So, it's sort, I see where you go in there, it's like concrete post tension. You look at it, it's a banded system, X, Y, Z, maybe it's like for the mass timber it's like that, but the constraints of what the option is like DFMA, but you're doing that from the bottom up is I guess what you're saying as well. You're starting with I guess from the bottom up, it can kind of start with manufacturing throughput. What's the shift achieve through to what's the design look like to achieve that shift through to transport constraints and then all of a sudden it's like what does that grid look like? Is it directionally what you're thinking

Robbie Svars (13:52):

Outside of our sort of realm? And just to highlight that inherent knowledge that everyone has in conventional, and they don't even realize that they have it. We'll be going through stuff and an architect is looking at how do I do my threshold detail to a balcony? How do I do where it is? How do I do even my windows and trims? And sometimes the poor architects are like, oh my god, I have to do all these little details that I already knew how to do, and my builder probably even knew how to do. I could probably on a lot of projects, never have even put them in. And the whole supply chain to construction and delivery, everyone knows you just be and that's how you do it. Whereas in mass timber, as new entrants come into the market, there's just a whole heap of things that they didn't realize was just inherent knowledge that they had and then everyone up the chain also had it.

(15:00):

So, there's certainly those things to address, but then even back to more global structural arrangements, firstly it makes a huge difference to be landing somewhere more rational. I have one of my sayings is that the ship had already sucked before it left the harbor and mass timber is so much more a cost sensitive, some very minor things can really swing the dial up and down or things that look minor coming from a conventional timber, a conventional construction background. Even as simple, the column beam connection can vary. This is one of the things like one ninefold in cost, whereas with steel and say concrete, it never gets, you could probably detail some things a bit better or a bit worse, but you're never going to be getting that kind of variance in cost. Obviously, things like, and mass timber is so much more quantized if you're going from a five level CLT to a seven level, that pretty much is going to blow feasibility out if that's going to be applied across the whole project.

(16:34):

So, it's like fine, fine, fine, fine, fine. Throw a grid spacing and then you go that little bit further and all of a sudden bang concrete, you can just vary it quite linearly and it doesn't quite have those tipping points through the project that do those big jumps there. And then the other thing is that there is a bit of difference across suppliers too using concrete. Again, generally the cost sensitivities are pretty much the same wherever you're going to source it from. Whereas timber, the obvious one is the different restrictions of logistics. If you're going to be doing it locally supplied and overseas supply, so containerized versus say back of truck, but even different suppliers, it turns out they've got cost sensitivity and more, unless around some really quite linear again about the fibers, just about the volume fiber. Others are a bit more, no, no, there's sort of fluctuations due to the manufacturing process too.

(17:59):

A big one will be tech block loading with glam, again, like another quantized things, but people do have slight variations on where they changed that block gluing from 1, 2, 3 sort of thing. So that's sort of the inputs that would go into a framework and certainly then allowing enough flexibility at the start to keep everything quite as open as possible. One for costs, but two, just for supply chain confidence and robustness with just comparing overseas and local supply. Again, sadly in our world at the moment, there's conflicts and a lot of things going on and so that can introduce that confidence issue for a supplier if they felt like they were only committing to one area of supply. So, frameworks that are flexible enough for that, but it is a process that focuses in on things and helps it. You start in the right place and then you sort of move forward to what's really going to work, taking all these considerations.

Adam Jones (19:22):

Yeah, that's amazing. It sounds like, or without a framework, I don't know, maybe you can elaborate more on what you're looking at there, but

(19:35):

It seems like someone's just starting out such almost an administrative burden or do you think people that are starting out to have relationships with the supply chain, as you said, what are the be column connections? You move this by X mill not knowing that your transport limitations or shipping container widths and you're doing three panels in this grid instead of two because of this, five layers to seven and there's all these, it seems like the cost curves, if you do it, if you nail it, pardon? Pardon the pun. Like you said at the start, there's a project that you've been part of where the cost neutral and it's like you're in nine to one difference on connections, right? There is good luck if you're on the wrong end of that, good luck getting your costs back. But it threw a lot at you. But yeah.

Robbie Svars (20:26):

Yeah. Well, I mean one of the things that's kind of funny is I'm aware I almost have to cut myself off when I first meet a client if they're quite new to everything. Because for one, the supply chain, there's a lot of variability, there's a lot to consider, but it can be difficult for them to get I guess a complete overview of everyone and what they're doing in Australia at the moment and the options they have at hand. And then I'll start going through getting into some of these details and how, well not sadly, but it's a very dynamic thing that can actually be better for you or it might be worse. And after about 40 minutes when I hadn't drawn a breath, I sort of look and I can see them, they're like, oh my god,

(21:25):

To have been going down a rollercoaster and I forget, we have been doing this for 10 years. We've got really strong networks into the supply chain too and a lot of visibility that all this becomes inherent to myself and the rest of the team. But it's a lot for someone relatively new to take on in one kind of hit, maybe I should go, we'll have three meetings we'll have back to future one, back to future two and we'll spread it out a little bit. But that's the idea of that framework thing too, is to just embed a lot of that knowledge into a process so that it doesn't have to be so manually transferred across into a project.

Adam Jones (22:20):

What are your thoughts on IP and in the sense that it's always that balance of the innovators like yourselves and there's a bunch of others, they go forward, get your own standard details, processes, things like that. But at the same time, it's like the standardization and consolidation of everything into industry norms so to speak. There's that balance. Maybe one gets swallowed up by the other. What are your thoughts on that in general?

Robbie Svars (22:48):

Yeah, and I reflect on this quite a bit, not that I wasn't already jumping around on examples and everything, but I'll jump around a little bit and sorry, I think I'm going to be using your former, did you ever work at WSP?

Adam Jones (23:08):

Yes, I did. I did.

Robbie Svars (23:09):

Yes, very big global company. They do amazing things, and they have a lot of lovely people working there. But one of the things I kind of don't like is protecting IP too much, particularly in structural engineering. Totally understand an innovative product that really does fall under what you'd expect, someone who takes out of patent. And I love the philosophy behind it that people can really commit and develop up something that they'll get a good reward on and should be encouraged in structural. So much of it is just common understanding of materials and things like that. And one of the first things, but it's not quite a mass timber thing, but there's amazing work done on core I think it's called, which is that it's over in the states, that hybrid and they sort of fabricate massive cores out of steel plate and then fill it as it goes up.

(24:22):

But the advantage is that it can kind of carry those construction loads and so they just go up and it goes fast. And I believe it might be a non-for-profit organisation, and I can't remember, but one of the really amazing US engineers over there developed it all up and I think I could be wrong, but I think WSP made enough of a significant change to what had been happening. They're now patient, which just really restricts it. And then you're left in the hands of lawyers and so there's a lot of uncertainty about even if you do something and are we infringing on that patent? Does a smaller player have anywhere near the resources to test that and sort of run with it? I then go back to just us and what we do and I go, if we're going to rely on, I call it active IP protection, it's almost like you're in a different business and you're going to be running around taking care of that.

(25:28):

One of my things I tell anyone who starts with us is we all have the same codes, we all have the same software, we've all got the same resources, we all have to work to legislative requirements and everything. There's not much delta there, but we've got a telephone, it's the service, it's the experience and the collaboration. It's the approach and attitude. That's what we can do differently as engineers. So very much my thing is a, don't assume that you can come up with this whizzbang connection detail and that's going to be your opinion strategy on that. I will also go through projects are always different and everything so simply there's always still room just for technical innovation and it might not be in the main grid of a post and beam, but there'll be other areas where technical innovation can be applied anyway. So that is something that can be special, but ultimately, yeah, it is like what's the thing that you can do differently that people aren't really focusing on?

(26:52):

And I do go, I will go firstly or caveat sometimes we don't quite get that as good as we could, but really always looking at it and I think you could talk to a lot of people we've worked with before and it would go, yeah, there's quite a difference. There's really helped us move through things. I just know things like those RFI processes and things like that and it's like with mass timber, a lot of contractors underestimated how long and complex things can get when you get to a shop modeling period and all of a sudden, they're really over a barrel. And yeah, that's been one of the good things that we've done is going, okay, look, alright, maybe we don't do it quite the same way because you're never going to be able to hit the deadline if you do this. So, putting up the hand and going, let's flatten the communication way that we're doing these things and just keep moving this forward.

(27:59):

Obviously, we can't reduce the attention that we're giving to the compliance side of it, but we can work in this bit over here and just move it forward. So, where I stand with all that and I go good luck to anyone who wants to really leave off essentially just applying as it's all Tim and all these, they all worked it out. The Romans did the pans and dome. This staff is really public knowledge, and I'd argue against the ability to make the significant step with a lot of this stuff that a patent would require, but

Adam Jones (28:49):

It's almost like I feel like sometimes things that are too smart is a red flag rather than a green flag. It's like people go in circles and circles and as you said, like a simple seeded bearing connection, probably a beam column connection, just seeding the be on the column and et. It's like that's probably what a 10-year-old would come up with if you said, oh, how would you do this? They go, oh, what can't we just cut this out? And you know what I mean? I think the thing that you've developed over 10 years is relationships in the industry. It's like you've got and there's no need for IP protection. It's just being a good person and actively engaging in the industry and then that's the thing that makes the projects move ahead or also psychological. I could imagine if someone does know what they're doing, speaking to someone at the start, at the start, they just need certainty that like, oh, can this person, do I have confidence this person can take it? Go ahead. And that's not like a technical solution. It's like a good feeling you give them that and confidence, right?

Robbie Svars (29:55):

Yeah, I will do one of my really bad jokes. I don't have kids, but if I did, that would be a dad joke. And that it's not just engineering, it's enjoy engineering. So

Adam Jones (30:08):

That is a dad joke. That is an absolute dad joke I've ever heard it

Robbie Svars (30:12):

Love. But one other thing you raise, and it's probably can be a bit of a general issue with engineers because they're all really smart, but sometimes they can resolve things and sort of end up with a solution looking for a problem. And then once things are protected and quantized, you lose flexibility. You start trying to, we'll change the project to kind of suit this. What we're going to apply, and I refer to it as the MacGyver approach and the limitations of things can actually drive the innovation. So, think build a helicopter out of the stuff you've got under your kitchen sink kind of thing. And that is I think particularly applicable to mass timber again, where the supply chain isn't as broad and available locally. So, confidence in the supply chain is a really important part of the development of a project. And then as soon as you start locking up things and losing flexibility because of IP things, you might be limiting, I guess, a client's ability to risk manage and be able to pivot should other things pop up. So, it’ll be like the breed in the wind a bit more than something sort of brittle and rigid and those things can introduce that brittleness to the overall approach to a project.

Adam Jones (32:11):

Totally. You've been working on some of the biggest and best projects in Australia. Is there any news on, just on a recent update on some of the wins that you've had and on the back of that, any things that are front of mind? You mentioned Mass Timber 2.0, that's probably a good podcast episode for this one actually, but what goes into that bucket based on the most recent projects and feel free to plug some of 'em. They are quite incredible some of the ones you're a part of if you're allowed to publicly say it. Of course.

Robbie Svars (32:42):

Yeah. It's kind of funny you say that though because I was going, oh, I don't want to talk about the projects I've got actually to probably what you weren't expecting, but it's not a specific thing. But we do a lot of stuff in residential and it's great and with the new is it seven star, the energy requirements and everything, it actually really opens up to what Mass Timber can do again and integrating it. I put it this way, we're sort of seeing things and that cost parity is fast approaching because in resi,

Adam Jones (33:26):

Hey, I thought resi would be a last year. It cost parity. So that's really surprising and exciting.

Robbie Svars (33:31):

Yeah, yeah, we're doing a tiny project which happens to be a kitchen for my mom and dad and it's tiny and you never even, I didn't look at it, dad being involved, he's owner founder of the business and he's like, let's do mass timber because as an example and it would be great. And I was like, oh, just wait till we cost it and then you might change your mind. Well, it all ends up not being that bad and it's certainly a typology that doesn't look to immediately lend itself to mass timber. Secondly though, we going with a vaulted ceiling and doing some things, which it just comes so easily to mass timber and if you're going to do those things out of conventional, it start to get really expensive really quickly. And then the other thing too, and I've got my fingers crossed here is it needs to be booked before Christmas, and we haven't even started on site and they think we are going to be in by the middle of December and that's just nuts.

(34:52):

And I actually said to the builder, there's one thing you've got to be really careful of. None of your contractors are going to believe you and you'll have these guys lined up and you'll call 'em and they'll be like, whatcha talking about he did that? And he went, that's exactly, I'm glad you told me because one of them drove past and they saw there was nothing happening on site, we're getting close to Christmas. And so, he rang him and he was like, what are you talking about? He's like, I just drove past, nothing's happened. And he sort of took him through it and that guy went, thank God you called me. Because in the back of my head I was like, I'm not going to hear from them sort of thing. So there's that too. And I don't like, or at least on larger projects, there's a lot of talk about speed of construction and I'm a believer that until we really start to have proven that, but on an ongoing basis, I wouldn't recommend it to a client to factor in big savings in that area.

(35:50):

But certainly at a resi level, if you're talking about people having Christmas with their family or whatever you do, but if you rural areas and everything and people are going's going to be like two years before this gets built. And again, on the personal side, these are the holiday houses, and these are places where people are having wonderful experiences and the idea that you can kind of bring that conflate, it's like don't worry about the dollars, but how good is it that you can just get in there and start using it really quickly? And I mean it does equally go for urban things too, but a lot of that with the resi stuff is it's around how the insulation has to be done now and across the board. Everything conventional has got really expensive really quickly. So, some of the legislation staff it makes helps the mass timber side, but certainly conventional has really come up just on its own side of the scale to bring everything into balance a bit more.

Adam Jones (37:03):

Yeah, yeah, that's amazing. Yeah, and going back to 55 South Bank, it was like nuances on every project getting in before Christmas schools, all that sort of stuff. So yeah, there's so much in that. And as we're getting to the end of the potty, Robbie, it's been amazing chatting to what do you see as the future of our industry and the future of timber construction and if there's any things on the bleeding edge that you see coming that are good or any things that we can improve.

Robbie Svars (37:36):

I'll jump to a specific thing. We've got some North American partners, and we've sort of looked at this and funnily enough that resi helps with this too because, and it's post and plate, it's certainly, again, it's limited the grids to mean that it's not a wide span approach to things, but it's got a lot of applications, really does harness certainly CLT plate. And it leans on that two-way direction founding, which is just an untapped little thing there. Obviously glue lamb or steel steel option. It's really straightforward. So, it's a really nice step for maybe a second tier contractor who doesn't have the resources and everything to manage a complex digital landscape, supply chain soffits. So mechanical services and everything don't even have to worry about it, but our North American partners are talking about really close to cost parity with concrete. I think that we have a different commercial environment which would take it to parity if it was applied here in the same way.

(39:04):

And then as a structural system, if you're talking about housing affordability and some of these things, there's this gap that it's like holy ole, this really could be fulfilling sort of the needs and the community and so forth. And I'm a big one. If we want mass timber to be used more, we've got to find some areas where it's just a commercial decision and it's great. Universities have been doing a lot of construction and schools and in government, but they're very different assets. Their owners have very different requirements and outcomes. But to make that at scale change decarbonization, the private developers and clients need a couple of at least first avenues so that it can prove itself in the market. So that's something that we are really excited about and it's good to go, it's there. It doesn't need further this or that or refinement just MacGyver.

(40:19):

Again, you need to just put all the pieces together. Certainly, think about speed of construction with that, but then all the ongoing speed of construction facades get it weather type fast. So I could go on for, but in general I think, I don't know what the future holds, but I think that the next step is to hone in on some of these business cases that just work commercially and really start to get that crossover into private projects and then sort of a foothold as a mainstream approach to construction and remove that feeling that it's the bespoke thing. And then that huge thing about decarbonization, I call it the bacon effect, is that you don't like eating Brussels sprouts, but add bacon to that or anything and it tastes better. And there's a great Portlandia or Portland Portlandia episode that hits on that. But that sort of thing is it is just coming in, people are just doing it for this reason and then they're finding out like, oh, by the way, it's really highly sustainable and it's an important step from a more altruistic, society minded approach to be taking. So yeah, that's what I would be going as one of the big themes that really needs to happen, how exactly you do that you get down in. That's another podcast, Adam,

Adam Jones (42:03):

That's so good. Well, Robbie, it's been amazing to chat to you. It was a long time coming to have you on the podcast actually in hindsight, but if people want to find out more about yourself and Vistech, where should they go?

Robbie Svars (42:16):

Website. We kind of have to update it at the moment, and I do that a lot myself. So www.vistech.com.au. I highly recommend if anyone wants to come by our office and you'll know how lovely it is, come by. We've got some samples and things too, but it's really great

Adam Jones (42:37):

Way. You've got an amazing connection. One of your connection sample things you got in there is amazing. It's so good. You got some of the best samplings I reckon I've seen as a sample setup. It's awesome.

Robbie Svars (42:49):

Yeah, so I highly recommend that. And then I guess go to the website, look us up and we can sort of start any conversations anyone wants to have.

Adam Jones (43:02):

Mate. Well, thanks so much, Robbie. We'll leave it there.

Robbie Svars (43:05):

Thanks, mate.