36 | Sector Focus: British Timber
SUMMARY
■ There is a need to address demographic decline in rural communities
■ High quality, energy-efficient homes are essential
■ Dowel-laminated timber is an appropriate fabrication method
■ A portable DLT press needs to be developed
TAKING THE FACTORY TO THE FOREST
Architect and managing director of Timber Design Initiatives Ltd, Peter Wilson, looks at taking offsite manufacture onsite in order to ‘Build Back Rural’
When Bob Dylan wrote ‘The Times They Are A-Changin’ back in 1964, he certainly couldn’t have anticipated Covid-19, Brexit and the Climate Emergency, but these new challenges have combined to form a perfect storm that forces us to redefine the way we think about the future.
It’s a truism that people generally don’t like change, however, and so when commentators nowadays refer to ‘the new normal’, they
usually aren’t questioning those aspects of the old normal that are currently being forced to undergo change or, more importantly, those which need to be radically rethought to be fit for purpose in the new circumstances we now face in this third decade of the 21st century.
WHAT ARE THE PROBLEMS?
The list of things falling into the last category is long but the need to address continuing
demographic decline in our rural communities is now urgent if these, sometimes remote, locations are to have a continued and more prosperous existence into the future. In part the problem is provoked by the lack of genuinely affordable housing, but also by the dearth of reasonably-remunerated, sustainable employment opportunities in these areas. Inadequate infrastructure, whether physical or digital, only exacerbates the scale of these challenges, from all of which one thing is clear: the ‘normal’ solutions simply didn’t work.
Hence, the ability to build new, high-
quality, energy-efficient homes within the resources of local economies is fundamental to the future sustainability of small and often isolated settlements. Without affordable new homes, population decline will continue apace, but how to deliver these in the new conditions we now have to respond to? Local building companies are usually small and often unaware, or disinterested in, modern methods of construction (MMC). The rural construction modus operandi is traditional and weather-dependent which, when combined with long lead-in times for deliveries of small volumes of materials from distant suppliers, too often result in delays to the build programme as well as claims for unforeseen costs.
Top: Home-grown larch panel using beech dowels Above: Finished dowel-laminated panels TTJ | September/October 2021 |
www.ttjonline.com
There is little or no competition from volume house builders in these locations since the affordable housing market is, ostensibly, too small and too problematic to ensure consistent margins and sufficient scale to make the effort worthwhile. This has resulted in a general consensus that it is more
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