Advancing The Possibilities For Mass Timber Construction

30th September, 2019

Global mass timber manufacturer Stora Enso has recently announced a feasibility study into the investment of €90million for a fourth cross-laminated timber (CLT) mill to be built in the Czech Republic. Eve Dennehy finds out what it takes to maintain position as a global leader in the highly specialised mass timber construction industry.

The announcement follows the launch in June 2019 of Grüvon CLT Mill in Sweden – the Company’s third stateof-the-art facility with a capacity of 100,000m3. Stora Enso has a current overall production capacity of  240,000m3 across three CLT facilities all with adjacent sawmills, and this will rise to 360,000m3 once Mill number four comes online. Since entering the UK CLT market in 2010, the Company has delivered more than one million cubic meters of CLT for projects around the world.

Stora Enso’s decision to invest in Grüvon CLT Mill was announced soon after the launch in 2018 of the bespoke laminated veneer lumber (LVL)  Mill at Varkaus in Austria, which has production capacity of 100,000m3 of LVL. This significant investment of €43million into LVL production was a strategic move aimed at meeting growing urban construction needs and enabling Stora Enso to serve new geographic areas and markets globally.

LVL is one of the strongest woodbased construction materials relative to its weight. It is ideal for handling high loads and is commonly used for lintels and beams, large spanning floor and roof components and columns under high load. Crucially, the combined production capability of both CLT and LVL enables Stora Enso to deliver on a key area of strategy to develop and introduce new massive wood components that will expand the range of applications possible for timber construction.

“We are working at the cutting edge of the switch from traditional construction materials to wood,” says Mathieu Robert, Head of Building Solutions at Stora Enso. “This trajectory is based on the high sustainability agenda in international cities and the priority from investors to invest in long term sustainable targets. We believe that we can take market share where existing materials have reached their limits and replace concrete with CLT and steel with LVL.

” Gareth Mason, Stora Enso’s UK Business Development Manager expands on this: “Stora Enso is a company that is continually innovating for the future. We can see the rising global demand for timber so we have to keep growing. We’re continually developing new and additional components that add value to our existing offering, and this is helping to change the face of construction as we see our mass timber components increasingly specified for pioneering projects around the world.

“Modular construction is a key area for us in the UK. We’ve been working since the early design stages on the delivery of Beechwood Estate for NU Build (part of Swan Housing Association) where 260 new volumetric homes are being delivered.” Designed by architect Pollard Thomas Edwards, the two, three, four and five-bedroom family homes are fully customisable with over a million possible variations. “The modular homes at Beechwood are a real success story,” adds Gareth.

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