4 April 2011
New Zealand wood processors run the risk of missing out on the massive amounts of processed wood likely to be required for Japan’s rebuilding, according to the chairman of the Wood Council of New Zealand, Doug Ducker.
Winners of the NZ Wood Timber Design Awards 2010
A visitors’ centre at Waitomo Caves took out three of the top prizes at the NZ Wood Timber Design Awards announced tonight.
Winning both the Commercial Architecture and Commercial Engineering Excellence Awards, the centre also picked up a Clever Solutions award.
Designed and built by a consortium of Dunning Thornton Consultants, Architecture Workshop, Hunters and Hawkins Construction, the judges said the building was a “highly-engineered answer to functional needs, which has been achieved in a structure which is as much high-performance as it is delicate”.
Another of the main prizes went to the new Supreme Court Building in Wellington designed by Warren and Mahoney.
Winning the Interior Fit-out Award, the judges commended the “mesmerising interior, demonstrating the craft of modern digital technology, fabrication and biomimetic design”.
Using silver beech, the courtroom’s panelling mimics the spiral diamond patterns of the native kauri cone.
Another highly commended entry was the “Folding Whare”, a simple, collapsible one room emergency shelter for use in disaster recovery designed by Callum Dowie in his final year at Unitec’s architectural school.
This year’s People’s Choice Award – decided by popular on-line vote– was won by Ambienti Architects for their Papamoa (Tauranga) based sales pavilion and community centre.
The Scott’s Landing beach residence by Stephenson and Turner Architects won the Residential Architectural Excellence Award for their design of a beach house at Mahurangi Harbour, north of Auckland.
The Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry’s multi-purpose building in Wallaceville, Wellington, also designed by Stephenson and Turner Architects, won the Sustainability Award for the architects’ “elegant but ambitious project to create a five green star rating using a refined architectural palette”.
Birkenhead’s library and civic centre designed by Archoffice won the Cladding Building Envelope Award for its “sculptural timber façade”.
The awards were announced at a function at Te Papa, Wellington, on Monday night.
Sponsors included NZ Wood, Carter Holt Harvey Woodproducts, Timberbond, Kop-Coat and the Timber Design Society.
The awards were judged by structural engineer Ross Davison, builder David Brown and architect Elvon Young.
(Details of all winners attached.)
For further information, contact:
Brian Langham
NZ Wood
021 784 626
This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..
He says not only will the Japanese need to import large quantities of wood and wood by-products for reconstruction of northern Japan, but the quake and tsunami have also destroyed parts of Japan’s own wood processing industry and caused other plants to stop manufacturing.
Mr Ducker said New Zealand wood supply was “under-utilised”. There would be opportunities for New Zealand companies to supply Japan with plywood and MDF for use in flooring.
But the New Zealand industry also had to face the risk that the logs it had been supplying to China could be turned by Chinese mills into wood for the Japan rebuild, he said.
The disaster in Japan had the potential to revive the fortunes of New Zealand’s wood processing industry that had been affected by the domestic downturn, according to Mr Ducker, who is also managing-director of Japanese-owned Pan Pac Forest Products.
Mr Ducker said a mill in Japan that supplied 25 percent of that country’s total plywood needs had been destroyed.
Pan Pac’s owner, Tokyo-based Oji Paper, has reported no major damage at its 17 mills in Japan but has shut down five plants in north-east Japan.
International forestry analysts are noting that Japan has substantially increased the use of wood in housing construction because it has proven to be more earthquake resistant than concrete.
US-based analysts are expecting a big boost in demand for North American timber suppliers. Canadian and US timber producers are well regarded in Japan as exporters of high-quality earthquake-resistant wood for building.
Reported in the Timber & Forestry newsletter, Paul Newman of British Columbia’s Council of Forest Industries said producers had been working with the Japanese to develop innovative products such as cross-laminated timber ever since the Kobe quake in 1995.
“There has been a lot of attention in Japan on earthquakes and wood construction is seen as a positive element in an earthquake-ready society,” he said.
Doug Ducker said that together with the likely demand for processed wood to rebuild Christchurch, the New Zealand wood processing industry now has a “double dip” revival opportunity.
For further information or comment:
Dr Jon Tanner
Wood Processors Association
04 473 9220
021 890 624
