 lifestyle changes more and more Australians are choosing: to move from living in the suburbs to the city centre. There is still a knowledge gap about existing cultural barriers and perceptions of infill timber buildings, and a need to better understand the social acceptance of multi-storey solid wood panel construction (such as CLT) for urban infill apartment living. There is a need for greater densification of our cities and CLT provides an opportunity to address the problem: ‘brownfield’ and ‘greyfield’ infill as affordable but attractive medium density housing stock, answering the particular problem of housing shortage and a resistance to ‘chicken coops’ (most apartment buildings in Australian cities are tall, made of concrete and are not based on needs, offering poor value compared to suburban homes).
Timber is the world’s oldest construction material, and has unrivalled carbon credentials. Around 1995, the new engineered timber systems emerged in the well-forested sub-Alpine regions of Germany, Austria and Switzerland. Introducing CLT construction systems to Australian cities would mean: rethinking design and construction standards, a renewed focus on modular prefabricated construction systems via digital design tools; but also a focus on material culture and a different understanding of residential development practice in general. The shift to resource-optimized urban infill buildings constructed with engineered timber systems will require behaviour change, to ensure these buildings will be fully acceptable to their occupants.
Why is wood still perceived as a risky option, compared to the usual concrete and steel? Usually fire, insects and acoustics are named as the risks and reason for prejudice. But in order for prefabricated engineered solid wood panel systems to be effective in Australia, consumer acceptance, availability of resource, knowledge transfer for appropriate design, local fabrication and construction capacity must all be aligned. Otherwise, CLT timber systems will not be feasible due to relative high cost of fabrication and lack of acceptance by potential occupants (buyers).
In this paper the author analyses eight case studies of recently constructed residential timber buildings, all between 4 and 10 storeys in height: seven international and one Australian precedent. These precedents are in London, Vienna, Steinhausen, Berlin and Trondheim; while Australia’s first timber high-rise has recently been completed in Melbourne (2012). There is a need to clarify why consumers would want to buy apartments in these buildings, based on in-depth post-occupancy evaluations that involve collecting information from owners, residents, neighbours, architects and developers to assess residential life in these multi-storey timber buildings. Such first-hand impressions will be invaluable in encouraging social acceptance of similar timber construction in Australia.
2. Growing Cities and the Argument for Urban Infill
Cities are the centre of consumption; they require an enormous concentration of energy, construction materials, water, food and land, which nature cannot provide [24,25,26]. Brown notes that collecting masses of materials and later dispersing them in the form of garbage, sewage and pollutants in air, water and landfill is challenging municipalities worldwide. All this has urban design implications for housing typologies and densification strategies.
Most of Australia’s larger cities have recently developed master plans for the next 20 years, to cater for predicted population growth (Australia is currently predicted to grow from 23 million people in 2012 to 36 million by 2045: COAG ), and to achieve this growth by increasing the proportion of urban infill from a current rate of around 40 per cent in the cities of Sydney, Melbourne and Adelaide to a nominated target of 60 to 70 per cent. These cities have identified transit-oriented development (TOD) sites and allow for higher density along transit corridors as key strategy: the master plans of all large Australian cities are strikingly similar in their aims