Materials and Structures

Structural Materials

The last few years have seen an extraordinary development of wooden constructions and the industry of the sector. The materials available today to designers and builders are many: solid wood, KVH, glulam, CLT, LVL, playwood and OSB to name the most frequently used. The structures are always often hybrid and therefore use several types of materials inside them, combining them with each other and interfacing them with the structural elements in steel and reinforced concrete.

Structural Types

For nearly half a century, modern wooden structures were essentially glulam roofs. A great variety of structural schemes were used which however developed essentially horizontally, to cover even considerable spans, even over 140 m with geodesic dome systems. With the beginning of the new millennium, something has changed and the engine of this change was above all the debut of the CLT. Alongside the light frame system that allows the construction of buildings with wooden load-bearing walls up to 4 – 5 floors, the massive wall system has conquered a significant share of the market thanks to its simplicity and speed of execution. The challenge in height has found in the CLT an excellent interpreter up to 8 – 10 floors in height, but we are going much further with large glulam frames and hybrid systems. The structures, within them, always often use multiple materials and different structural systems, combining them with each other thanks to cutting-edge engineering.