There are few, if any, construction projects that haven’t been affected by the Covid pandemic and the new Centre for Advanced Timber Technology (CATT), which is part of the New Model Institute for Technology and Engineering’s (NMITE) Skylon campus, is no exception.
The original completion date of March 2021 has long gone and, since being featured in TTJ last year (TTJ September/October 2020), the design has completely changed and new building partners are on board. CATT also has a new man at the helm – Professor Robert Hairstans was appointed founding director earlier this year, on secondment from Edinburgh Napier University (ENU), with which CATT now has a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) (TTJ May/June 2021).
Perhaps the biggest change is that CATT will now share the building with another of NMITE’s planned learning spaces, the Centre for Automated Manufacturing (CAM).
“Covid was a big part of the delay,” said Prof Hairstans. “In addition, we received extra funding to accelerate building the CAM and this fed in to the decision to change the design to the combined CATT/ CAM building. This, therefore, required new planning consent.”
Planning permission was granted on March 15 this year and groundworks at the Skylon campus on the Herefordshire Enterprise Zone are just under way. The target completion date is June 2022, with the first student intake of CATT learners scheduled for September that year.
The main contractor is the same as announced last year – Speller Metcalfe – but the architect is now Bond Bryant (the previous design was by Oakwrights) and the specialist structural delivery partner is Hybrid Structures.
The 2,500m2 building will include five 100m2 studios, 220m2 of breakout and event spaces at the front and two 700m2 workshops to the rear to host CATT and CAM as well as other amenities, such as a café, a lobby and a dedicated quiet space.
The building will still showcase advanced timber technologies, with Hybrid Structures sourcing glulam from Hasslacher, cross-laminated timber (CLT) from Stora Enso and timber panelised infill systems from Welshpool-based PYC.
However, in another change to the original design concept, these timber elements will be incorporated into a hybrid structure – the workshop space is to be steel frame with panelised timber system infills.
The decision to go hybrid was purely pragmatic, explained Prof Hairstans.
“Given the delays caused by Covid there is now quite a tight schedule to get things delivered on time and on budget and the procurement processes and design approaches resolved to this being the most efficient and cost-effective way of delivering this building,” he said.
For some timber purists, this might be disappointing but because the centre will perform a ‘living lab’ function, there is a very positive spin.
“What we want to learn from this process is how we can overcome some of the challenges and barriers to timber uptake,” said Prof Hairstans. “There are real pressures in terms of procurement – for example, Hybrid Structures had to pre-book the glulam and CLT many weeks ago to ensure it would meet the given time frame. “We will learn from the whole approach and be completely transparent about what we’ve done and why we are doing it from an educational position for the learners that come through the door but also for the wider professions. And that includes the supply chain itself.”
A research fellow, Gabriele Tamagnone, who joins the CATT team in August, will be tasked with extracting as much information from the building process and the structure itself, in order to “fold” that into the learning. This won’t just be about structural timber engineering but will encompass the whole “seed to build” journey and how that can facilitate the uptake of timber.
“This covers embodied energy, embodied carbon, productivity, logistics, sequencing of operations, management of materials on site, all the way through to how the building performs from an energy perspective, a structural perspective and a moisture management perspective,” said Prof Hairstans. “We also want a biophilic approach to design, so what does that more natural space do in terms of VOC levels, indoor air quality and how does it encourage learning?”
He added that Speller Metcalfe was totally on board with this forensic examination, allocating a space on site for Mr Tamagnone to operate from. In return, of course, it will benefit from the knowledge exchange.
“Being immersed in a live construction project using advanced technologies will create value return for the client (NMITE/ CATT) but also for Speller Metcalfe.”
Looking further ahead, the concept of the living lab and value return could be extended if NMITE is able to take advantage of an option it has to buy land next to the CATT/ CAM building. This site could be used to showcase advanced timber technologies by building anything from timber houses to timber wind turbines for renewable energy generation.
“I’m keen to get the industry involved in this and I think this is where one of the main opportunities resides,” said Prof Hairstans.
The aforementioned MoU demonstrates how important the partnership approach is to NMITE and brings with it a host of benefits. ENU is the lead UK and internationally recognised university of timber construction and wood science research and, in addition, hosts the Construction Scotland Innovation Centre (CSIC). They have advanced timber testing and manufacturing facilities, respectively, including the only UK facility for mass timber fabrication via vacuum press technology.
The plan is for CATT’s facilities to be “complementary to the infrastructure that is available”, so although there will be some repetition of effort “in order to meet with the localised context, there is no point in duplication”.
“We will see how this unfolds, but essentially the learners will be able to derive solutions to given problems and if something needs to be manufactured it can be done at the CSIC, for example, or through a framework agreement with an industry partner, such as a roof truss or timber frame manufacturer,” said Prof Hairstans.
“A product manufactured externally could then be brought in to CATT for testing or to add value to it and it could be incorporated into a design challenge, which could be a building or a system put up in the land adjacent to CATT or on a live project. The opportunities are endless if we get this set up correctly”
He added that there is a great deal of work to do before that can be implemented – putting in the appropriate software systems for students to use and signing up reciprocal partners, but said “there’s a lot of enthusiasm and proactiveness, so we will get there”.
This sharing of resources could extend to the teaching process, too. The current core team of academics includes Prof Hairstans, Tim Belden, who is assistant professor of digital engineering at NMITE, and Gabriele Tamagnone but there is also the expertise of the ENU and CSIC teams to tap into. Plus there is the academic community of Timber Development UK (TDUK) to explore.
“I have a list of 10 or 15 people that have been proactively trying to put timber content onto the curriculum of traditional universities, so let’s bring them into the fold and see what’s there in terms of partnership and engagement. There is lots of opportunity, it’s just a case of synthesising it down to make sure we get the model right.”
Prof Hairstans says he is “hooked in closely” with TDUK (the merged Timber Trade Federation and TRADA) and has close links with other industry organisations, including the Structural Timber Association and Truss Rafter Association (TRA) who have been proactive in their engagement to date.
“Funding secured by my colleague Dr Mila Duncheva at Edinburgh Napier University from the Edinburgh and South East Scotland City Region Deal and the Housing, Construction and Infrastructure Skills Gateway is currently supporting the development of competency framework with pilot learning material including a COP26 ‘Ice-box challenge’, the premise of which is to underpin what we want to do through the educational approach so we can create these ‘T-shaped’ professionals who understand timber. The governance of the steering committee for that competency work includes the TDUK, the TRA, CSIC, Timber Design Initiatives, and Swedish Wood all of whom are providing in-kind support including learning materials.”
CATT is keen to gear its educational approach to meeting the needs of industry and a series of roundtable events with senior timber industry representatives last year, prior to the appointment of Prof Hairstans, resulted in some key takeaways.
These included: demand for short courses focusing on specialist skills and training to address current and future gaps; the desire to hire work-ready graduates to refresh the talent pipeline; and the need for a demonstration hub to progress new methods of working equipment and technologies, especially for SMEs.
The over-arching consensus from the industry partnership exercise was the need for CATT to “stimulate collaboration across the industry both vertically (seed to end product) and horizontally (architecture, construction, digitalisation) as a common theme, together with showing a wider audience how rewarding a career in timber can be”.
The above was further reinforced through a recent series of CATT strategy update seminars with industry feedback received. The number one priority remained to establish CATT as a centre of excellence for timber engineering with an emphasis on educating built environment professionals to ensure uptake.
Prof Hairstans added that demonstrating the many different career paths available within the timber sector was one of CATT’s unique selling points.
“If you do a traditional civil engineering degree you’ll probably go on to a graduate training programme with a consultancy engineering firm or a main contractor and become a chartered engineer, whereas what we’re doing here is seed to building and covering that whole landscape. It means individuals coming in can be in control of their pathway – so they can be a joiner on site but they want to be a structural engineer, or they are an architectural technologist but want to be a production manager, and so on.
“We want to enable this because it will be a more attractive educational approach that will be challenge based, rather than lectures and exams – it will be learning by doing and upskilling on that basis.”
The finer details of the learning still have to be fleshed out – with input from organisations, such as TDUK, so that it can be tailored to meet industry demands – but in essence it will be the degree apprenticeship model. NMITE’s degree awarding process is through the Open University.
One possible scenario is that students could be provided with micro-credentials (bite-sized learning that can be accessed anywhere), which can be reached through an online knowledge library and they could then go into CATT for blocks of time comprising practical challenges.
Other industry tie-ups clearly demonstrate the hi-tech nature of timber construction today. CATT has established a five-year relationship with German-based Dietrich’s, the 3D CAD/CAM software specialists for wood construction and in addition to supplying the software, Dietrich’s will provide training for NMITE academics on an ongoing basis.
And, the partnership with ENU creates scope to link with California-based Trimble, via the Trimble Technology Lab. Trimble has a broad portfolio of building construction solutions and its strategic aim is to “enable the digital transformation of the architecture, engineering and construction (ACE) practitioner workflow”.
“An integrated digital process empowers disparate teams across the construction lifecycle with actionable data to improve productivity and reduce waste,” said Prof Hairstans. “The most recognisable software of Trimble is 3D modelling SketchUp, and in addition to this there is an extensive range of hardware including the Trimble and Microsoft HoloLens (notably NMITE also has a partnership agreement with Microsoft). This is complimentary to the NMITE Dietrich’s relationship and creates enhanced opportunities around collaborative work, digital twinning, and virtual reality / augmented reality.”
Prof Hairstans is keen to accelerate digitalisation and factory-based approaches and says the level of digital connectivity between everyday objects brought about by Industry 4.0 will increase as assets become more “intelligent”.
“Industry 5.0 personalisation is the next step, with the collaboration of human skills and digitalisation,” he said. “Workers in Industry 5.0 will be upskilled to provide value-added tasks in production, leading to mass customisation and personalisation for customers. Research work into these types of approaches to timber construction have been pioneered at ETH Zurich.”
Digitalisation is high up on the agenda in the 2020s and so is the environment, particularly with the COP26 meeting coming up later this year. So if the time is right for timber it is certainly right for CATT.
“The stars are aligned,” said Prof Hairstans. “You could adopt a timber first policy but, to be honest, do you even need to because if you’re having to have evidence of the embodied energy and the embodied carbon in your building, and you have to have a certain level of pre-manufacture and waste reduction on site, then the drivers point towards timber based solutions anyway.
“That is why CATT is a huge opportunity for the sector because to take advantage [of the increased interest in timber] you need to underpin it with skills. With CATT the industry has a blank canvas, a higher education start-up institute prepared to put into play a new educational model to train from seed to building.
“Timber construction methods are exceptionally sophisticated and the UK has a really strong track record in that level of sophistication from the sawmillers through to the end utilisation. It’s a bugbear of mine that there is a real thing about home-grown timber – ‘don’t use it, it’s not good quality’ – but we have some of the most sophisticated sawmilling practices and mills have invested heavily to optimise the material. That’s why mass timber was created – it’s about adding value to the material. You maximise its value and then it goes into the built environment locking up carbon for generations.
“The knowledge and expertise that reside in the UK for the utilisation of the product is world class. But we need more.
“We won’t get this opportunity again,” continued Prof Hairstans, “and it’s come in from left field. NMITE has come up with this concept, recognised the opportunities in the timber sector and presented it to us with seed funding to get things mobilised, so let’s step up to the plate and let’s do it. Let’s make sure it works.”
