In the recent past, UK project promoters, developers, self-builders, housing associations, local education and health authorities, leisure and resort organisations, and even DIY home extenders and improvers, have been constrained by professional consultants and advisors with only limited knowledge of timber structures.This is as a result of technical building and engineering training and education that has favoured steel, concrete and masonry over timber, often seeing wood as an aesthetic, rather than an engineering material.
In fact wood is perhaps the oldest and most traditional of structural building materials.It is also the only renewable building material on planet earth.With its uniquely high thermal insulation properties and extremely low embodied energy requirements in manufacture and transport, it is also one of the most environmentally friendly materials available.
Ask anyone about designing, working and living with ‘wood’ and they will naturally recognise its flexibility and ease of working, as well as its warmth and beauty. With an increasing number of road and foot bridges, schools, village halls, visitor centres, hotels, and every other type of structure you can think of rediscovering wood as the ideal construction material, it is no wonder that it is being seen as the material of choice for new buildings everywhere.‘Designer Friendly’, ‘Builder Friendly’, ‘User Friendly’, and with modern designs making buildings up to 8 storeys high an increasingly common phenomenon, wood is one of the nicest and best materials to build with.
No wonder, then, that more and more people are choosing timber structures as their preferred medium of expression for their new project.But with so few architects, engineers, surveyors and other construction and property professionals really understanding the material, obtaining appropriate advice, or instructing ‘the right’ professional is becoming increasingly difficult.
That is until ‘TimberTecs’ was created.
