WoodFest Cardiff is coming to Wales to celebrate how the
country is using wood in design and construction.

Taking place
between February and May and featuring a variety of events, WoodFest Cardiff
will focus on low carbon housing, connecting communities, local timber and
healthy building products. It is organised by the UK timber industry’s
campaign, Wood for Good,
in collaboration with The Timber Research and Development Association (TRADA), Woodknowledge
Wales, Western Timber
Trade Association (WTTA) and many more.

As the climate
emergency continues to dominate the news agenda, WoodFest Cardiff will
demonstrate how building with wood can help. A series of events, seminars,
exhibitions and site visits will take place throughout the coming months.
WoodFest Cardiff is a learning and knowledge-sharing opportunity for
architects, engineers, placemakers, planners, developers, contractors, industry
and political professionals.

One of the
highlights of WoodFest Cardiff is TRADA’s annual university challenge. Hosted at Cardiff University between
17 and 19 February, 60 students from 30 UK universities will showcase their
talent by creating a design concept for a sustainable housing community using
timber. The brief is given by Wales & West Housing, with judges from a broad cross-section of disciplines such as
engineering, architecture and landscape architecture, including 2019’s Stirling
Prize winner, architectural practice, Mikhail Riches.

During the
university challenge, Cardiff University will be hosting an evening event
dedicated to building performance. The keynote speakers are energy consultants
Nick Grant, from Elemental Solutions, and Sally Godber, of WARM, who will share
how to achieve Passivhaus standards and their experience of using timber.

The Royal
Institute of British Architects (RIBA) will host a series of events. Workshops
exploring the concept of Active Building will be held in Swansea on 20 February and in Cardiff on 27 February. Sustainable design in historic buildings is the theme for a seminar in
Machynlleth on 30 March and an interactive seminar on Inclusive Environments will conclude RIBA’s events in Cardiff
on 22 April.

Further events,
held by Woodknowledge Wales, include the following:

• Rob Thomas, director and
  architect at r+m studio in Cardiff, will talk about the exemplar zero
  carbon build solution developed as part of the Home-Grown Homes Project
  (HGHP), at the Welsh School of Architecture in February.
• A TRADA event exploring timber
  construction and manufacturing as part of the HGHP research on better
  manufacturing homes will take place on 19 March.
• Cardiff Metropolitan University
  is hosting an invite-only pilot day on measuring building performance on 7
  May with Diana Waldron, lead on building performance within HGHP.
• Jane Anderson from the Alliance
  of Sustainable Building Products (ASBP) will deliver an invite-only
  workshop on embodied carbon alongside Pentan Architects on 20 May.

Christiane
Lellig, Wood for Good campaign director, said:

“WoodFest is
proving to be a successful way to bring together the key people involved with
design and construction to discuss the benefits of timber or to share their
discoveries.

“The built
environment is under scrutiny in terms of the environmental impact that
buildings have on the planet. WoodFest is an opportunity to learn more about
decarbonisation and net zero carbon emissions and how wood can be part of the
solution to this global issue.�

Keep up to date
with the latest events for WoodFest at www.woodforgood.com