Rotorua's Red Stag is supplying timber for the rebuild of the University of Canterbury Students' Association Centre.
The university is following the preferred Canterbury rebuild option of engineered timber for the project, using engineered wood engineered by Kanuka Engineering Wood Products. The company's glulam wood product was used for the Red Stag remanufacturing building, which picked up the New Zealand Wood Timber Design Awards' People's Choice award for Kanuka and Structural Concepts Limited last year.
Red Stag general manger Tim Rigter said working together on that project led to this collaboration on the Canterbury project.
"They are using the same technology in Christchurch and we are supplying the wood."
Glulam consists of several layers of timber bonded together with durable, moisture-resistant adhesives and can be used in the place of steel bracing in roofs, ceilings and walls.
At Red Stag, this technology was used to create a 45m clear span and 5000sqm of floor space. At the University of Canterbury, it will speed up the rebuilding process because it is an existing building system that can be adapted, without having to go through a detailed, lengthy planning process.
Rigter said the project did not require any special processing by Red Stag as it was supplying standard 100x50 timber Kanuka for the rebuild.
He had seen a slight increase in demand from Christchurch, generally, since Christmas due to wood's good record during the earthquakes and because it is a building product that sequesters carbon, compared to the emissions created during the manufacture of concrete and steel.
University capital projects manager Andrei Martin said it was also preferred for its properties during an earthquake.
"The additional advantages of this construction method is that lightweight timber structures are known to be safer - any potential risk of damage and business interruption attributable to ongoing seismic activity is significantly reduced."
New Zealand Wood chief executive Jane Arnott said research done in Canterbury since the February 22, 2011 quake showed how aware people in the region now were of wood as a building material.
"We are seeing an understanding and critical evidence throughout Canterbury as to how timber construction fared better."
Of the 200 people surveyed at the Christchurch A&P Show, 98 per cent said wood should be used in rebuilding in the region.
"That is all good, but we need to continue to build the message."
Arnott said New Zealand Wood was working particularly closely with engineering and architecture schools to educate the new generations of engineers and architects about the properties that make wood a suitable building material. She includes in this its flexibility, safety, fire resistance and thermal properties and that it comes from a renewable resource.
Engineered wood products are even more suitable, she said, because the engineering processes could accentuate the positive elements and eliminate or minimise its less suitable properties.
"Combining traditional ways with new engineered wood materials is very exciting for the industry."
She pointed to the partnerships between Kanuka and Timbercore, which prefabricates the glulam in Christchurch, as an example of how the wood industry can and will work together.
Arnott also commended Red Stag for ensuring there was sufficient supply for wood engineering of this type, while building new demand for their product.