A prominent Quebec delegation, including Professor Pierre Blanchet, attended Woodrise 2023!
The Woodrise International Conference on medium and high-rise Wooden Buildings was held in Bordeaux from October 17 to 20, 2023. A significant Quebec delegation, including representatives from the Laval University Industrial Research Chair on Eco-responsible Wood Construction (CIRCERB) and Cecobois, participated in this important event to promote international collaboration and contribute to the diversity of perspectives.
Woodrise 2023 brought together 3,000 wood construction actors, including experts, researchers, engineers, architects, and industry professionals. The event offered a diverse program of conferences and technical workshops, providing a unique platform to discuss advances and challenges in the field of wood construction. Conference themes covered important topics such as decarbonizing buildings and cities with wood, promoting the competitiveness of wood construction, and mid- and high-rise wood construction projects around the world. These conferences were followed by seven simultaneous technical workshops covering specific areas such as fire safety, the acoustic and dynamic performance of wood buildings, forest resources, the circular economy, digitization of the sector, and securing innovation.
This congress has played a central role in the development and promotion of wood construction. By fostering the exchange of innovative ideas, best practices, and solutions to common challenges, it provided a crucial platform for the growth and continuous improvement of this field. The sharing of experiences between the various participants in this sector enabled them to keep abreast of the latest trends, benefit from collective expertise in solving specific problems, and foster the development of new approaches and technologies. Networking opportunities also paved the way for fruitful collaborations, business partnerships, and exchanges of expertise. Furthermore, by strengthening the professional community, the event created lasting links between players in the sector, fostering promising professional opportunities and contributing to the industry’s continued growth.
Three members of the Woodrise Quebec delegation, including Pierre Blanchet, NSERC Industrial Research Chair in Environmentally Responsible Wood Construction (CIRCERB) and member of the Renewable Materials Research Centre (CRMR), comment on their participation in this international conference on medium- and high-rise wood construction.
Pierre Blanchet, CIRCERB full professor at Laval University: «Woodrise 2023 shows us that political will can play a big role. While France embraced the mid- and high-rise wood construction movement at the first Woodrise in 2017, at Woodrise 2023, we could see that the movement is well underway. The country is now among the leaders.»
Catherine St-Marseille, Associate Architect, Provencher Roy: «Woodrise 2023 was an opportunity to witness the incredible growth of solid wood construction in the participating countries. This event is a unique opportunity for us to exchange with manufacturers, engineers, private clients, government agencies and researchers, and is essential for disseminating and sharing expertise to encourage the use of solid wood in our constructions.»
Jean-François Martel, partner and national director of expertise, structure, and building, at CIMA +: «Woodrise 2023 has highlighted the giant strides made by the industry in recent years to democratize the use of wood for mid-rise and high-rise buildings. The stimulating exchanges held with fellow architects, engineers, property owners, researchers, and manufacturers reinforce our optimism in this regard. Let’s work together to break down more barriers and enable the use of wood for uses, heights, and scales of buildings that we wouldn’t have dared to imagine until now.»
SOURCE: https://www.voirvert.ca/nouvelles/rubriques/retour-sur-woodrise-2023