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Woodspec -First Timber Specifiers’Guide Produced in Ireland
By Donal Magner
Woodspec: A Guide to Designing, Detailing and Specifying Timber
in Ireland is a comprehensive specifiers’ manual which
reflects an increasing confidence in wood usage and design
in Ireland. The guide and accompanying CD-ROM provide wide-ranging
information to ensure the efficient production of precise
specifications in relation to the appropriate use of timber.
It was published by the Wood Marketing Federation because
information and guidance on timber for specifiers was not
available to anything like the same extent as other materials
such as concrete, steel and plastic. Although Woodspec is
designed with the specialist in mind, its clear and accessible
format has attracted a wide audience. It is mainly aimed however
at architects, engineers, designers and other specifiers.
The Wood Marketing Federation is also conscious of its educational
value and has been promoting it to relevant third level students.
The 300 page guide provides a challenge to specifiers to use
wood creatively. It is the first guide of its kind in Ireland
to include designing, detailing and specifying timber. COFORD
(the National Council for Forest Research and Education) produced
and maintains the Woodspec website (www.coford.ie/woodspec)
and also offer a complimentary free advice service on timber
specification. The guide has been well received both in Ireland
and overseas and its availability, especially on the web,
ensures that it has wide readership and usage. Woodspec is
the result of four years of work by an editorial, design and
management team comprising architects, engineers, wood scientists,
foresters, designers, builders and a range of specialists
including processors and wood treatment experts. The guide
illustrates the versatility of wood and will provide the user
with the necessary information for architectural and engineering
expression.
The editorial team behind Woodspec took nothing for granted
from their audience when preparing the guide. They set the
tone for the entire guide by including a section at the beginning
entitled “Ten Timber Principles”. These might
be obvious to some specifiers who are familiar with wood usage
and design but in Ireland we do not as yet have a wood culture
and Ciaran O’Connor, technical advisor to the Woodspec
project team and Senior Architect with the OPW, believes that
these principles are worth restating. They cover the essence
of good practice in the use of timber. The principles are:
Respect the climate
Specify the correct moisture content
Ensure durability through preservation
Ensure fitness for purpose
Eliminate wet and dry rot
Use graded timber
Have no fear of fire
Get your walls breathing
Conserve historic timber work
Be ecologically aware
The
guide is clearly laid out with an introductory section which
includes a chapter on how use the guide, the aforementioned
ten principles and a chapter entitled “From Saw to Site”.
This includes essential wood characteristics, strength grading,
preservation and timber finishes. In addition it deals with
aspects of timber treatment from mill to building site and
includes handling of timber in off-site and on-site construction.
This is followed by the following five sections:
A:
Design Guidance
B: Detailed Drawings
C: Sample Timber Specifications
D: Timber Building Specifications
E: Reference Materials
Design Guidance (A) and Detailed Drawings (B) describe and
illustrate good practice and appropriate use of timber and
timber products. For example Detail B 6.10 includes a range
of drawings for Timber Frame - First Floor Construction such
as Detail 6.10.4 for load bearing partitions. Like all drawings,
it includes detailed accompanying notes.
The section on Sample Timber Specification (C) gives a complete
set of specifications for timber suitable for the preparation
of a Bill of Quantities requiring little or no modifications.
Building Specifications (D) allows the specifier to provide
the contractor with specifications relating to structural
and building applications in wood while the final section
on Reference Materials (E) includes an illustrated list of
Irish and imported timbers and their properties, a glossary
and an index. In all, 21 woods (8 softwoods and 13 hardwoods)
are illustrated. A summary table of these woods is also provided
showing individual characteristics and properties including
texture, wood density, moisture movement, durability, working
properties and availability. All sections are clearly illustrated
with close to 300 detailed drawings and tables.
Although Woodspec is designed to facilitate the preparation
of specifications, users and readers may dip into it at any
section where information is needed. Also, the five sections
of the guide are interlinked which maximises its accessibility.
For example, cross-referencing is facilitated by the use of
a bar at the bottom of each page which leads the user on to
related information such as detailed drawings and design guidance.
Woodspec illustrates that timber has advantages over other
building and design media but it requires knowledge and expertise
to maximise its added value and its use. It also requires
creativity because as O’Connor points out, wood culture,
like any vibrant culture must spread new roots, sprout new
ideas and have contemporary relevance, if it is not to stagnate.
He believes that we in Ireland have an ecologically friendly
and renewable resource awaiting development and the guide
is to facilitate the user’s contribution to that wood
culture.
O’Connor is fully aware of the work to be done to achieve
a wood culture in Ireland. He says: “We have inherited
a fragmented European timber heritage because of our history
and the depletion of our woods in the 17th century. Today,
we in Ireland are quickly moving towards a surplus of timber.
We need to develop a wood culture comparable to and complementary
with, our masonry culture. Specifiers in many European countries
who have a tradition of wood usage and design have a full
appreciation of the nature of wood and how to handle it. These
are at ease with wood as a wide ranging versatile design and
building material ranging from aesthetic use to functional
and highly demanding structural situations”.
O’Connor
maintains that because timber is not a man made product, manufactured
under rigid control, some are suspicious that it is not amenable
to good specification and control. Proper application of Woodspec
should help reduce these fears and give specifiers the knowledge
and confidence to use wood in a wide range of applications.
This would bring Ireland into line with other European countries
with strong wood cultures. The Guide ensures that Irish specifiers
will be well equipped to meet the challenges and opportunities
that innovative use of wood provides.
Woodspec has been promoted by the Wood Marketing Federation
through a series of roadshows in Waterford, Wexford and Dublin
this year and it is proposed to follow these up with roadshows
in a number of venues - north and south - in November. In
addition, the guide will be promoted to third level colleges
with a view to incorporate Woodspec as a module in engineering
and architectural courses. The Wood Marketing Federation also
has plans to launch a wood promotion programme in 2004 and
at a recent meeting between a broad range of organisations
in the Irish wood chain there was strong support for this
initiative. The main aim of the Wood Marketing Federation
is to promote the use of wood as a versatile, viable and renewable
resource.
The production of Woodspec coincides with a period of new
confidence in the Irish forest industry which now has a total
annual turnover of €510m. It also coincides with greater
public awareness on the value of green energy and products.
The Wood Marketing Federation acknowledges this and believes
that it is time for a generic promotion of wood. Woodspec
will be at the core of this campaign which will promote wood
as a sustainable resource awaiting creative architectural
and engineering development.
Donal
Magner is Secretary of the Wood Marketing Federation and project
manager of Woodspec. He is a forestry consultant specialising
in communications and publishing. He formed Magner Communications
in 1993 after a career in forest management and communications
with the Forest Service and Coillte. He holds a Masters Degree
in forestry from University College Dublin. He is editor of
the Forestry Yearbook and writes regularly on forestry and
wood industry issues for a number of Irish and international
publications. |
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