Mass Timber Construction Podcast
Mass Timber Construction Podcast
Mass Timber Market Updates - May 2025 - Week Eighteen
Timber is taking over the world, one remarkable structure at a time. From concert halls to skyscrapers, sustainable mass timber construction is revolutionizing architecture across the globe, and we're bringing you the latest innovations.
The UK's Mass Timber Centre for Excellence has unveiled its £1.5 million investment in cutting-edge manufacturing equipment, including an impressive vacuum press system that's changing the game for engineered wood products. We share exclusive images of this technology that few get to see up close. Meanwhile, the iconic wooden roof at Portland's PDX airport has reached new heights of popularity by starring in DJ Avalanche's latest music video – proving that mass timber isn't just sustainable, it's becoming a cultural phenomenon.
Japan's 2025 Expo in Osaka will feature a breathtaking circular CLT pavilion that reimagines the relationship between architecture and visitors, while Holland's ambitious Nice Timber Tower soars 140 metres into the sky with its revolutionary wooden elevator core and concrete-free construction. Perhaps most surprising is Middle Georgia Regional Airport's $13.4 million guitar-shaped terminal, constructed primarily from southern yellow pine – a perfect harmony of regional identity and sustainable building practices.
We're also thrilled to announce the university teams competing in the 2025 Autodesk Challenge Cup, where the next generation of designers will showcase mass timber solutions for "smarter building for a translational way of living." Don't miss our special guest episode featuring Bonier Ofeig and Julie Abington discussing how New Zealand revolutionized social housing through mass timber years before the rest of the world caught on. Subscribe now to stay on the cutting edge of the material that's reshaping our built environment – literally and figuratively.
Ladies and gentlemen, we are live. This is the moment you all have been waiting for. It's time for the global sensation, the one, the only, the undisputed heavyweight podcast in the world the Mass Timber Construction Podcast. And now here's Mark Cramer, your host. Good morning, good afternoon or good evening wherever you are in the world today, welcome to the Mass Timber Construction Podcast. My name's Paul Cramer, your host. Thank you for listening each week. Don't forget the special guest episode that just popped, with Bonier Ofeig and Julie Abington from New Zealand, who really revolutionised things in the social housing game many, many years ago, and we are now playing catch up. So if you want to hear more about how mass timber shaped the way social housing worked in New Zealand, you can listen to that episode. It's a really, really good episode and thank you to the two gents for joining me.
Speaker 1:Let's have a look at what's making news around the world this week. In mass timber construction land and the Mass Timber Centre for Excellence in the UK offers the most advanced mass timber manufacturing equipment, locally commercial, available CNC machine in the country, machine in the country, and it is supported by the Scottish Funding Council and host institution Edinburgh and APA University. The innovation campus at BE-ST will now house a 1.5 million pound newly acquired state-of-the-art mass timber post-processing equipment, a super blower extraction system, and you can check out all the news around this particular project, including having a look at their impressive vacuum press system. If you've never seen a vacuum press before, you can have a look at how a billet is laid up inside a vacuum press. You can head to our linkedin feed to see all the details. And when you ventured to the international mass timber conference Conference in Portland this year and you went through PDX and you looked up, you will see the amazing roof structure. Well, that amazing roof structure has now made it into a music video clip by DJ Avalanche, and you can see the full video clip by heading to our LinkedIn feed and then clicking on the link there to have a look at the PDX wooden roof structure in the background. The music might not be your taste, but the video and the graphics are certainly very good to see. There are some more impressive renders of the big ring, the circle of life and circular economy at the Japan Expo 2025, osaka. The forest-like pavilion made of CLT creates a seamless connection between exterior and interior environment, between which the exhibitors and the architecture form part of the interplay in the in-betweenness that expands the concept of circularity and circulation. This is an impressive series of photos. If you want to have a look at it, please head to our LinkedIn feed.
Speaker 1:In concept designs and structural sort of highlights have been released for the Nice Timber Tower building, the high-rise architectural building in Holland devised and designed by me architects and planners in the Netherlands. The nice tower is an impressive 140 meter tall building made entirely of timber and represents the next step in revolution of circular timber high-rise construction. The tower delivers its sustainability through wood embracing the facade, the wooden elevator core and's fully bio-based, entirely concrete free ground floor to lift the core and the supporting structure, and it reduces co2 emissions by comparing it to traditional buildings. The building offers sustainability, inclusivity in residential program in response to increasing pressure for urban space, so that's urban densification. If you want to have a look at the renders for this, you know where to go.
Speaker 1:I thought over the many years I had seen it all in mass timber, until I saw a brand new guitar shaped airport terminal in middle georgia regional airport that is going to be produced from mass timber. This, what you see, is what you get Country style bird's eye view of a guitar sitting on its side as a building on the ground is part of the $13.4 million project that will be fully funded for the 2025 Macon Bib Country Industrial Authority Construction Fund. According to the construction release documents, the terminal at Middle Georgia Regional Airport will be built primarily from southern yellow pine and the project will be 90% of Georgia's forests privately owned and material provided to the project. You want to have a look at it, you know where to go and just for those in Australia, the Autodesk Challenge Cup hosted by Prefab Oz and Autodesk are the primary sponsor for this particular event. We have now got our team registrations in for the Challenge Cup for 2025, curtin University, deakin University, rmit University, university of Melbourne and Western Sydney University, and I've been at three of those five, so it's good to see people that I've been associated with representing in this industry challenge.
Speaker 1:The industry challenge is about smarter building for a translational way of living, and the entries can be seen at the end of the year when we host the awards for it at our national conference, which will be in around about September, and it's at the Gold Coast this year just to let people know exactly where it might be heading. Don't hold me to that 100%, but that's where the talk is at the moment inside Prefab Oz. So get your looking glasses on when details come out and have a look at these impressive projects from these students at these competing universities, and we look forward to seeing the outcomes of the project. That's it. That's all we've got time for folks. Good morning, good afternoon or good evening. Don't forget to hit subscribe, like comment, share anything on our LinkedIn feed. Don't forget to listen to special guest episodes and we'll catch up with you next week. Good morning, good afternoon or good evening. This is paul kramer signing off from the mastin construction, so Bye.