Astonishing speed and meticulous fabrication with mass timber

When Developer Parklea engaged i2C Architects to design their new corporate headquarters in Melbourne’s southeast, they specified that they wanted it to be as sustainable and close to carbon-neutral as possible. i2C Architects looked to cross-laminated (CLT) and glue-laminated timber (GLT), supplied by Cusp Building Solutions, to achieve the objectives. In addition to the environmental benefits, choosing CLT and GLT also saved time and money.

Timbertop Estate is home to 700 residences. The Timbertop hub is an innovative commercial and retail space that will service the estate. On the top floor, it will house Parklea’s own corporate headquarters. It is here that Parklea requested the use of CLT and GLT due to its sense of warmth and environmentally friendly qualities.

Designing with CLT and GLT was new to i2C so they reached out to Dayne Davis from Timber Design Studio, and his team of timber engineering experts, to work in collaboration.

“i2C reached out to us [Timber Design Studio] at the commencement of the project on day one, hour one, which is the perfect way to approach designing with mass timber because it allows us to optimise the structure,” says Davis.

Davis explained that the rules of timber physics are a bit different to working with steel and concrete. The architects hadn’t designed with mass timber before, so working collaboratively allowed us to make sure we were delivering exactly what the client wanted in terms of price and vision. We could optimise both the architecture, the fabrication and the cost.

The costs savings from using timber are significant. The structure is fully exposed internally, which saves budget on paint, gyprock and other internal fit-out costs and importantly cost is saved due to the speed of construction on site.

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Source: Cusp Building Solutions