 to sustainable housing transition?
What are the motives and roles of the architects, real estate agents and engineers involved?
How strong was the public engagement with these CLT projects?
Finally, understanding the barriers to change and policy levers for accelerating innovation, this research will explore the liveability/acceptability of CLT buildings for infill development in Australian conditions and climate, taking the knowledge developed in Project ‘CLT 1’ and assessing the expectations and experiences of occupants through occupancy satisfaction surveys (post-occupancy evaluation research has not yet been conducted).
8. Conclusion and Further Discussion
The most urgent areas of action for planners and engineers that have emerged are probably in the fields of:
Water and waste in the built environment;
Electric vehicle mobility and green infrastructure;
Eco-city planning and green space linked to a public health agenda;
Low carbon construction systems;
Inner-city housing models attracting people to move back to the centre.
Better housing design can significantly improve health outcomes. The integration of affordability and sustainability in housing is of crucial importance for the future development and re-development of Australian urban areas. The author found that the barriers and obstacles are not so much technical as human. This is why we have to raise low-carbon construction systems to the top of our research agenda and focus attention on transforming industry to enable long-term change. In Australia, solid wood panel construction has to be moved beyond being a niche innovation that is only carried out by a small network of pioneers.
This paper has focused on cross-laminated timber as the most promising of a range of engineered timber technologies. There is now a sense of momentum behind CLT that will hopefully flow through to other engineered timber building systems and composite possibilities. Many of the new engineered timber buildings are hybrid constructions. The e3 Building in Berlin uses a combination of CLT panels, glulam elements and ‘Brettstapel’; the Earth Sciences Building in Vancouver uses an OSB-type laminate in its floor panels as composite with a concrete topping; the Massey University building and LifeCycle Tower in Dornbirn use panels with laminated timber webs and concrete toppings.
Since 2005, various high profile landmark buildings have been realised in CLT technology and the construction system is now getting more and more established in Europe, the UK and Canada. The construction sector’s focus on embodied energy and carbon storage has increased recently.
Wood is a rapidly renewable resource. Currently, CLT structural timber is made from wood of the managed pine forests of northern Europe and Scandinavia. But, as global carbon will become an important commodity, it could be likely that China will start planting mega-forests on a scale the world has never seen.
Technology itself is not the main problem identified; the main barriers are the slow uptake by industry and consumer resistance to denser inner-city living and new construction materials/systems. For instance, further research is needed to analyse whether residents are more likely to accept higher densities when they know that the density is caused by very green buildings? It is essential to consult the community, for example in neighbourhoods earmarked for higher density and major developments. Studies of international ‘successful’ cities have shown that those that enjoy broad community support for their city’s policies have both consulted and developed consistent plans over time. The recent report by the Grattan Institute Cities: Who Decides (2010)  found that encouraging the community to meaningfully participate in the decisions that governments make about the city is fundamental in developing plans that are embraced and supported by the community. This includes the development of thoroughly researched alternative scenarios that are canvassed publicly: articulating a new Australian dream for the 21st Century, to succeed with urb