European Construction Giant, Bouygues, Bets Big on Timber Buildings

On next week’s Smart Buildings Analyst Call, we will be meeting with Yohann Sberro, head of Business Development for WeWood, Bouygues Construction. A 58,149 employee company with 13.4 billion Euros in annual revenue, Bouygues is one of the largest builders in the world, and WeWood represents a major bet on timber construction for the company which now has a team of more than 50 people working on wood construction projects.

Timber construction has been on the rise in Europe over the past few years, particularly based on efforts there to reduce carbon emissions. However, in his presentation Yohan will highlight some of the other advantages they have found in building with wood.  This October, Bouygues will be completing Paris 12 – Place de La Nation in Paris, a 39 unit wood apartment building constructed over an active grocery in Paris’ 12th Arrondissement, and it isn’t just France. In fact, Germany leads Europe in wood construction, and other parts of Europe are seeing wood construction projects as well.

The latest of 120 timber projects completed since 2015, Bouygues has established an entire entity, dubbed WeWood, focused on delivery of projects leveraging a range of approaches to wood construction and has set ambitious  goals for using wood on its projects in the future.

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Larger Scale Wood Construction is Also Making Gains in the United States and Canada

As we saw in last spring’s Buildings conference, Timber Construction is making inroads in the United States and Canada, too.  Rob Dodd, Executive Vice President, Nabholz Construction, walked us through his firm’s work on the recently completed, 200,000-sf timber Adohi Residence Hall at the University of Arkansas to help us understand where and why certain organizations are electing to build wood frame structures. In this case, carbon reduction was a priority, but there were other considerations for use of wood in the project as well.

To provide a perspective on timber construction as well as on the way the timber construction is evolving in relation to building technology, Via Technik’s, Senior Project Manager, Maria Laguarda-Mallo, will be joining next week’s call. She will offer perspectives on wood building construction in the United States and more than 400 timber projects she is tracking in the states and in North America, generally.