An innovative minimal-waste timber pavilion design project by our research partners – The University of Queensland ARC Future Timber Hub – was recognised at an international conference in Barcelona, Spain in October.

The ARC team presented their timber pavilion construction at The International Association for Shell and Spatial Structures conference, beating over 20 other designs for a commendation.

The pavilion is part of a research project, conducted in partnership with Swinburne University of Technology and Hyne Timber, that aims to minimise construction waste through an approach called 'inventory constrained design'. 

UQ School of Architecture Research Fellow Kim Baber said the focus on cutting timber wastage guided each decision in the project.

“Defects like knots, checks and splits in the utility-grade timber that we used in this project would usually render it unsuitable for structural uses in buildings” Mr Baber said. “We found that we could add significant value to the utility-grade timber by removing the imperfections and designing the structure in a different way.”

In Barcelona, the team installed a full-scale model of their pavilion which was designed using ‘funicular geometry’ and ‘inventory constraint’ principles. ‘Funicular geometry’ is a form finding methodology used by Catalan Architect Antoni Gaudí over a century ago.

Project participants included University of Queensland researchers, students and graduates from the Schools of Architecture and Civil Engineering including Kim Baber, Joe Gattas, Daniel Foote and Harry McCollough. Research partners from Swinburne University of Technology, Jane Burry and Canhui Chen were also involved.

Here at Hyne, we’re proud of our role as Timber Hub Industry Partner and we’re proud to supply the timber required to build this project.

More on this story here.