752 High St Construction

28th  September 2020                     

Milestone: CLT about to be delivered

Our multi-residential project on High St, Thornbury has been under construction since June 2020. The 5 storey building which consists of 13 apartments above a retail tenancy, car parking and service areas at ground level is well underway with the concrete construction up to and including the first floor slab completed. Concrete construction was decided upon for the lower floor to allow adequate fire rating separation between the retail and residential areas. The residential area, constructed from structural timber walls and floor plates (CLT) is commencing on site with large panels of pre-manufactured CLT panels arriving from the XLAM factory.

We’ve written about the advantages of this form of construction in this previous post but to recap a few key points:

-        The timber is a carbon sink and is far better environmentally than concrete and steel construction.

-        The building is constructed more quickly because it’s prefabricated and brought to site in panels for assembly.

-        Trades can commence more quickly at each level without waiting for props and scaffold to be removed.

-        The final building outcome will be quieter, more airtight and more comfortable to live in.

For us as architects, the commencement of the CLT on site is a significant milestone because the prefabricated methodology is very different to trade construction. We’ve found that our role has shifted as we become more involved in the ‘building process’ as the form of construction requires decision making much earlier.

The CLT is made on a CNC machine that’s fed a digital model with the tolerance on panels down to millimeters. Truckloads of panels are then delivered to site. The timber construction will then be clad and fitted out like any other building, with brick rainscreen cladding on the outside and plaster on the inside.

We had to make decisions about cladding buildups, wall thicknesses and exact window sizing before the CLT could be manufactured. This is very different to adjusting, adding and fundamentally having a larger tolerance for error on site that’s allowed in typical framing construction. Although the CLT is only now commencing on site, we are already working with the builders to finalise finishing trades.

We have spent more time making decisions than normal ahead of construction, But it allows for the four floors of building to go up in 8-10 weeks which is far quicker than normal construction. The stairs and lift well are also constructed of prefabricated CLT, and they will go in floor by floor, allowing easy builder access.

We’re looking forward to continuing to share our experiences using this new form of construction and will share some footage of the CLT panels being delivered and installed shortly. If you’d like to know anything specific about using CLT, its application in residential projects or our experiences so far at our High St project, shoot us an email. We’re always happy to chat anything CLT!