Canada Wood Group visited a manufacturing plant in Ishikawa prefecture, Japan, in March 2022 to view the production of nail-laminated timber (NLT) panel production.
According to Canada Wood, the NLT panels are for a new Tokyo University of the Arts International Exchange Centre, a Canada Wood Demonstration Project, which is currently under construction in the Ueno Ward of Tokyo.
The 5-storey mid-rise structure is a combination of steel frame and wooden post and beam elements with NLT floor diaphragms. The NLT panels will use approximately 85m3 of 2×6 SPF J Grade on the 3rd, 4th and 5th floors of the structure.
The use of NLT floor panel was made possible with the joint Council of Forest Industries (COFI) and Japan 2×4 Home Builders Association Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism (MLIT) NLT floor assembly fireproof approval which was obtained in 2020. The Canada Wood team have been working with Maeda Construction, who also visited the manufacturing plant with Canada Wood, since 2019 to realise this “first large-scale application” of NLT construction in Japan, as claimed by Canada Wood.
Tokyo University of the Arts International Exchange Centre is Canada Wood Japan’s newest demonstration project funded by the Government of Alberta to display the use of NLT in large-scale public buildings.
Canada Wood reported that research has been conducted prior to the project to determine the impacts of humidity and temperature conditions on the NLT floor assembly performance to confirm optimal design parameters suitable for Japan’s climate conditions.
