Woodfair South West News

Building with Wood

Thanks to everyone who took part in the Building with Wood event at Exeter University in September. Do keep in touch and let us know whether or not the Building with Wood conference changes what you do in the future.

The presentations are available here...

Transcripts will be available later in October.

Our first conference, which was a joint project between Woodfair South West and the Centre for Contemporary Art in the Natural World (CCANW), sought to bring together all the various different professions involved with timber in construction in an attempt to broadcast the benefits and encourage greater adoption of this naturally sustainable resource. We hope you’ll agree that the conference provided a unique opportunity to hear from local, national and international experts reflecting a diverse range of topics relating to building with wood. The conference also enabled architects and planners to mill about with foresters, timber suppliers, research scientists and builders enabling each sector to share its valuable knowledge and experience and learn how they can better support each other in the future.

We are grateful for your feedback. From this we can tell you that:

• Delegates were inspired by the examples of timber buildings especially those which showed innovation and creativity and welcomed the opportunity to network.
• There is clearly a great deal of support within the various professions for using more locally-sourced timber in the future which many people (84%) felt could be helped by more information and (72%) by the employment of a local broker.
• It was interesting to see from the feedback that the majority of respondents attribute the current increase in timber in construction to a demand from clients, particularly those looking for a ‘bespoke’ project.
• Respondents felt that their businesses could best be helped by pro-active marketing, more information (perhaps through a web site) and more technical seminars.
• The main barriers against a greater take up for building with wood the top three were seen to be availability, price and quality.

Thanks again to the Forestry Commission for sponsoring the conference.

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