10 June 2025
One of the questions I often get is,
“Does MMC actually work?”
The short answer is: yes, it absolutely can, when the right conditions are in place.
During my time leading Strongbuild, an innovative building contractor, we had the opportunity to be at the forefront of MMC in Australia. Over a five-year period, we delivered some of the country’s most advanced and complex prefabricated projects, including:
- Macarthur Gardens – NSW’s first mass timber apartment project (3000m³ of CLT)
- AVEO Norwest – A 10-storey vertical mass timber retirement village (4000m³ of CLT)
- Macquarie University’s Innovation Hub – A detailed prefabricated kit-of-parts structure that has since won over 25 industry awards
These projects were delivered successfully, within budget and made their allowed margin, all during a time when traditional construction was arguably more productive and cost-competitive than it is today. In fact, Macarthur Gardens was awarded after a competitive tender against four other builders proposing and pricing a traditional concrete solution!
More recently, at Viridi Group, a pure manufacturing business, we efficiently supplied unique timber and hybrid solutions, both kit-of-parts and volumetric modules, into over $300M of projects across Defence, Education, Commercial, Residential, and Luxury Hotel sectors.
Read more:
LinkedIn post from Adam Strong
WoodWorks Issue – 10 Jun 2025
Welcome
It’s mass timber Tuesday again which means we are in Christchurch running our South Island seminar and site visit. We’re delighted to have the chance to meet in person and hear from a group of practical architecture, design and construction professionals. The recounting of the case studies on these local building projects helps motivate the rest of us to meet our next challenging project with new ways to tackle them.
Make no mistake – the challenge facing us to grow timber in commercial construction will keep coming at us all. Thinking about the Theory of Constraints we can each take a gem of learning from today’s speakers and apply it to our next project challenge. Each new ‘aha’ moment in our day will help us get another client to experience the unique rewards from building in timber – this amazing natural resource we get to deliver.
Listening to a recent North American podcast, even their project managers talk about lack of critical mass, code acceptance, moisture matters and lack of supply chain experience over there. So take each timber project challenge in your stride and know you’re moving the needle in the right direction for more people to choose wood for good. To today’s speakers >>> thanks for being part of our timber team and sharing your learnings!
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Does MMC actually work?
One of the questions I often get is, “Does MMC actually work?” The short answer is: yes, it absolutely can, when the right conditions are in place. During my time...