LET BE WOODEN
NEBletter of LIFE BE-WoodEN project Powered by ART-ER |
Let's start Today we’re launching the first number of Let Be Wooden, the NEBletter of the project LIFE BE-WoodEN Buildings and Education in Wood Ecosystem for the New European Bauhaus (LIFE 2023-PLP-Bauhaus-Phoenix-Emerald) which, between 2024 and 2025, will accompany us in the storytelling of a natural material: wood. Wood is returning to the centre of attention of architects and designers attentive to environmental and social impacts as a material for more sustainable and fair building. The theme of sustainable building based on the regenerative and circular bio-economy is the focus of the NEB Academy Pioneers Hub initiative, launched by the New European Bauhaus for the European Year of Competencies and dedicated to reskilling and upskilling in sustainable building. |
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THE NEB FACTOR It takes wood to make a table... New skills for sustainable building As recounted in Gianni Rodari's ingenious text written for Sergio Endrigo's song, everything in nature is interconnected and, as we have now realised, mankind is part of it along with the artefacts it has made from natural materials. Wood has certainly been one of the most widely used materials for the construction of utilitarian and artistic objects, houses and transports. It is a ductile material, available in many variations and characteristics, which over time, however, has gradually been replaced by other materials: in the construction sector, by the concrete. The global challenges of environmental sustainability and emission reduction are highlighting the role of natural elements as a source of knowledge and solutions to improve our living environments and the wellbeing of communities. |
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| The LIFE BE-WOODEN project deals with exactly this, and to find out more we talk to Giovanna Franco, University of Genoa, who coordinates the European partnership. Giovanna: The idea for LIFE BE-WOODEN came out in response to a special call for proposals from the LIFE programme on the use of wood and bio-based materials - biological materials, such as algae or others on which much research is being done today - for use in construction. |
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A specific aspect of the call was the training of new professional profiles capable of using these materials throughout the entire construction life cycle, from design to execution, to the construction site, but also to design according to principles of environmental sustainability, to the management of the building's life cycle and even to the recovery, redevelopment, and dismantling of existing buildings. The special feature of the call was the focus on the pillars on which the New European Bauhaus approach is based (environmental sustainability, social inclusion and beauty), which was of great interest to the project partners. Giovanna: The project was strongly supported by the partner Regione Liguria, the first among the Italian regions to espouse the NEB approach and methodology, organising initiatives that resonated in the area but not only, in collaboration with the University of Genoa. The Liguria Region imagined that a competent partnership could be catalysed around this call for proposals, which gradually expanded around the initial nucleus formed by ART-ER, the University of Florence and the University of Genoa, enriching itself with national partners, such as Federlegnoarredo, and with a European profile, such as the Technical University of Wroclaw, the University of Primorska and Housing Europe. |
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LIFE BE-WOODEN is a proposal structured around two fundamental objectives: the training of specialised skills and the creation of new professionalism expressed by the principles of the New European Bauhaus. Why return to wood as a building material? Giovanna: The increasingly strong focus on sustainability and renewable resources, the reduction of emissions and energy costs of building materials have led to a rethinking of the greater use of wood. |
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This material has characterised much of the history of construction, not only in Europe but all over the world, especially in countries with great availability of this resource. There are critics and architectural historians who like to divide the historical world of construction into two large bands across Planet Earth: the wood band and the stone or brick band, as a derivation of local clay resources, and into this second band the countries of southern Europe certainly fall. In recent modern times, the massive construction that has characterised the post-World War II period, commercial buildings, and the development of high-rise buildings, have required the use of so-called new materials, primarily steel and reinforced concrete, which have increased the structural potential of buildings and have led to the great urbanisation of low-cost construction, thanks to more cost-effective assembly techniques. What does building with wood mean today? Giovanna: First of all, building with wood means thinking of it as a renewable resource: important attention must be paid to the cultivation and use of the wood, but also to the processing methods. In fact, in addition to natural wood, what we call solid wood, new processing methods have been developed which now offer increasingly interesting products from the point of view of their load-bearing capacity, and which therefore also make it possible to construct buildings developed in height. The challenge is at the same time to build lightly but with non-polluting or harmful materials that have positive perceptual characteristics. Wood is considered by users as a material that expresses pleasantness and warmth, appreciated for the quality of the spaces it creates. The project includes an important activity related to the development of innovative training courses: what skills and for whom? Giovanna: We have developed a multidisciplinary reflection on what skills are needed to "return" to building with wood, because the material is no longer the same, and the new architecture and new housing requirements (density, height) require different construction methods from the past. The skills required are different, we need to know the wide range of products and their possible uses, their expressive and technical potential but also their shortcomings. We therefore have a crucial target, the design engineers in the broad sense: architects, engineers, surveyors, designers also of environment and living spaces, inside and outside, the outdoor equipment, the creation of common social spaces. Another important target group is represented by public authorities, those who deal with authorisations, minimum environmental criteria, Green Public Procurement, and the management of the timber supply chain. It is important not only to look at who will use the processed products, but also at what it means for the territories that are extensively forested, such as Emilia-Romagna, Tuscany and Liguria, which are project partner locations. We need to understand what the obstacles and constraints are also in the creation of a wood production chain, which unfortunately has not yet developed much because it has difficulties, in the process of cutting, of use, of utilisation. From this point of view, the role of ART-ER will be very important. Thanks to Federlegnoarredo, we will also involve companies producing materials and components derived from wood. The project lasts two years and has ambitious but concrete goals, such as a NEB Academy dedicated to the use of bio-based materials in construction. |
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Photo credit: Miran Kambič |
| Giovanna: One of the main impacts of the project is the creation of an Italian NEB Academy Pioneer Hub, which will be set up between the University of Genoa, the University of Florence and ART-ER, with activities mainly dedicated to training (NEB SUD Hub). We are counting on this great deal because it will be a large umbrella within which we will not only include the project |
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activities but hopefully all the other activities in place at the three constituent bodies relating to this issue and, above all, we hope it will become the trigger for future actions. In this process, the University of Primorska plays a key role, due to its expertise in wood material engineering. We will be visiting one of its buildings, an innovative all-wood building, which is also constantly monitored to assess its concrete impacts on user well-being. In addition, the University of Primorska has established the first European NEB Academy Pioneer Hub (NEBAP HUB), and we plan to establish a permanent collaboration between the Italian and Slovenian hubs. Another legacy of the project is the training path that will be developed and tested. Giovanna: The path we are working on is structured on three blocks: capacity building on new skills; circular economy in construction; use of wood and bio-based materials. The activities are addressed to a European professional target group that we will also be able to reach thanks to the University of Wroclaw and contact with the ACE (Architects' Council of Europe), but we would also like to involve the International Union of Architects. The methodologies will also be important: not only traditional lectures, but also more dynamic approaches, learning-by-doing, visits to pilot sites, lessons in the field and participation in Innovation Labs. The activities of the LIFE BE-WOODEN project also pay special attention to the social dimension of a building, which must not only be sustainable and beautiful, but also take into account the needs of communities, of those who will live in those buildings, especially if they are fragile social groups. Giovanna: One of the approaches that will characterise the training course will be the participatory design process, paying attention to the users’ needs; this is not new for schools of architecture, think of the experiences of Giancarlo De Carlo or Renzo Piano. These are approaches that are very present nowadays in the regeneration processes of historic centres, in degraded contexts, coming after the utopian approach period of the recent past. With our project we will work on social housing from different points of view: the use of natural materials and wood for the design of high-density housing instead of prefabricated reinforced concrete technologies, which are inflexible and not very adaptable to new usage needs, and a pilot experiment on a concrete case identified in a newly-acquired building by the Azienda Regionale Territoriale per l'Edilizia di Imperia, in western Liguria, where a selected group of participants in the training activities and Innovation Labs will engage in Challenge-Based Learning (CBL) on the renovation of the interior and exterior spaces. And all this with the help of Housing Europe, which will provide its expertise and knowledge, with pilot cases and best practices at European level. |
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| Giovanna Franco is Full Professor of Architectural Technology at the Department of Architecture and Design, University of Genoa. Her research interests include recent and ancient architectural heritage, sustainability, resource conservation and energy efficiency, maintenance and enhancement. She was the Director of the School of Specialisation in Architectural Heritage and Landscape in Genoa and Coordinator of the Master's Degree Course in Architecture. She is the author of numerous international and national publications. |
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EVENTS The project was presented as part of the satellite event of the NEB Festival 2024, 'Developing new skills in Liguria for the implementation of the New European Bauhaus', organised on 18 April in Genoa by the Liguria Region and ANCI Liguria. |
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TRAINING A rich webinars programme, currently in preparation, is part of the project’s activities aiming to strengthen the skills of the professional community in timber construction topics, meaning architects, designers, professionals, technicians. The first three modules are dedicated to: the design of public spaces based on NEB principles, technologies for the design and construction of sustainable and circular buildings, and the use of wood in construction. Each of these modules will be divided into different Units, with general descriptions, case studies and good practices selected by the lecturers and experts of the Be-WoodEN Consortium. The webinars will be published in Italian and English on the free access platform of the Association of Architects of Genoa. |
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