NEWS
World
The Smile – a cutting edge experiment in hardwood CLT for the new built environment Cross Laminated Timber (CLT) is not new. High-rise buildings are popping up all over the world, showing the environmental way for a new age of wood. Well-known Dutch architect Alex de Rijke recently predicted in an article entitled, ‘Timber is the New Concrete’, that timber would be the dominant construction material of the 21st Century. Text by World Hardwoods
Photo: © Jon Cardwell and the American Hardwood Export Council
London, UK – So what was special about The Smile, a dramatic structure installed in the courtyard of Chelsea College of Art, for the London Design Festival 2016, which was designed by architect Alison Brooks with engineer Arup in cooperation with the American Hardwood Export Council (AHEC)? Made of timber, the structure effectively a beam curving up at both ends, was called The Smile and looked just like one. Many considered it one of the most exciting installations of the festival. However to David Venables, European director of AHEC, it is clear that in his terms it was not just an installation, but something far more important. ‘It was meant to represent the challenges of a building’. While CLT is becoming a widely accepted means of building, it has been done exclusively in softwood so far. The
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Southeast Asia Building MAR-APR 2017
Photo: © Dave Stewart and the American Hardwood Export Council