26 August 2025
From Canberra, Stewart Architecture’s 23 National Circuit building, located within the Realm precinct, serves as a sophisticated contribution to this diverse urban condition. Utilising a CLT structural system, the building exemplifies the raised expectations of architecture and construction for a commercial typology.
The cross-laminated timber (CLT) structure forms the identity of the six-storey building, hovering over a heavier concrete base and wrapped in a lantern of floor-to-ceiling glazing through which the cross-bracing is clearly visible.
The building is made from over 280m3 of Tasmanian grown Eucalyptus regnans, obilqua and delegatensis trees. This volume of timber is regrown in Tasmania every 74 minutes. Minus the embodied energy of production, these trees captured 115,772kg of equivalent C02 in their lifetime. Specifying locally grown and manufactured timber avoided the carbon emissions associated with overseas shipping. The timber has been finger jointed with bolts which allows the building to be deconstructed at the end of its life and for the timber be re-used or recycled.
Click here to read the original LinkedIn post from Stewart Architecture.
Click here to read more about the building by Stewart Architecture.
WoodWorks Issue – 26 Aug 2025
Welcome
Greetings from your WoodWorks team. This week to begin our Timber Tuesday we have NZ’s Techlam sharing their top 5 ways to make timber buildings more affordable including how involving wood experts early on in the design process can improve efficiency during construction. Next up in Winnipeg, Canada, check out a tall and slender building using timber diagrid frames to provide spatial optimisation on a limited footprint.
Canberra’s six-storey 23 National Circuit building has been recognised with a commercial architecture award. Jumping to Germany where the Park Arena Furth has been completed using clever and striking engineering to remove the need for complex steel connectors. In Kensington Market, Toronto a new four-storey housing complex will be built. CLT was chosen because it offered more design flexibility.
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This Issue
1
Wood is Good – When Understood
2
Diagrid Frames provide Spatial Optimisation
3
2025 ACT Architecture Awards – 23 National Circuit received an award for Commercial Architecture
4
Honeycomb-like timber canopy spanning nearly 40 meters in width
5
CLT superstructure ready to rise on former parking lot in Kensington Market
6
And one to end on… manure on strawberries?
26 August 2025
Wood is Good – When Understood
Wood is good – when understood. So true. At Techlam, they’ve spent years delivering engineered timber solutions across Aotearoa and beyond. From bespoke glulam beams to large-scale structural systems, they’ve...
26 August 2025
Diagrid Frames provide Spatial Optimisation
Bond Redux is a proposed mixed-use development in downtown Winnipeg designed by 5468796 Architecture. Envisioned as a catalyst for urban renewal, the project responds to a challenging site just 31...
26 August 2025
2025 ACT Architecture Awards – 23 National Circuit received an award for Commercial Architecture
From Canberra, Stewart Architecture’s 23 National Circuit building, located within the Realm precinct, serves as a sophisticated contribution to this diverse urban condition. Utilising a CLT structural system, the building...
26 August 2025
Honeycomb-like timber canopy spanning nearly 40 meters in width
From Germany we have the Park Arena Furth, a structurally optimised and also strikingly beautiful, honeycomb-like timber canopy spanning nearly 40 meters in width and rising to 15 meters in...
26 August 2025
CLT superstructure ready to rise on former parking lot in Kensington Market
This summer a superstructure for a four-storey housing complex will rise on a former public parking lot in Toronto’s Kensington Market. What is novel about the 78-unit affordable housing project...
26 August 2025
And one to end on… manure on strawberries?
A friend suggested putting horse manure on my strawberries. I’m never doing that again, I’m going back to whipped cream. Did you know? That by replacing your potato chips with...