Judges praised the project for its ambition and social value, noting its seamless integration into the landscape and its sustainability goals. At the heart of the design is the “Forest Spine,” an internal courtyard that divides the terminal into domestic and international sections. The space connects travellers to nature while flooding the terminal with natural light through a triple-height entry, floor-to-ceiling windows, and skylights.

Built from locally sourced timber — a cornerstone of Bhutan’s new 386‑square‑mile Mindfulness City — the design allows for simple disassembly and rapid expansion. Covering 68,000 square metres, it is designed to accommodate 123 flights daily and is expected to welcome 1.3 million passengers by 2040.

Wood Central understands that the timber members will be carved and coloured in traditional motifs, including three dragons symbolising Bhutan’s past, present and future. Bjarke Ingels, BIG’s founder and creative director, said the airport is “traditional yet avant‑garde, forward‑reaching and rooted,” adding that the “airport is the first and last impression you get of a place you visit. For Gelephu, we have tried to embody the nature and culture of the country and the Mindfulness City.”

The airport was one of six Future Projects honoured at the festival, with other winners including the Vancouver Aquatic Centre in Canada, Luana Farms in the Philippines, Smithfield Birmingham in the United Kingdom, Acclimated Sports + Multipurpose Hall in the Philippines, and Te Ara Tukutuku in Auckland, New Zealand. Highly commended projects ranged from a waste‑to‑energy plant in Vietnam to a leisure complex in Greece and an arena in Mexico.

This year’s festival, held for the first time in the United States, has drawn more than 1,800 architects and designers to the Miami Beach Convention Centre. Over three days, from November 12 to 14, 500 projects will be pitched to juries, while speakers explore themes of sustainability, culture, and urban design. The event will conclude with guided tours of Miami’s Art Deco district and a gala dinner celebrating the winners later today.

Please note: Wood Central contributor Mark Thomson is in Miami, where he is one of 12 Australian-based judges (out of 164 total) judging 40 categories. In the coming days, Thomson will provide Wood Central with exclusive insights from the festival.

Laurie Hein, managing director of Green Triangle Forest Products, was recognised for a career that began in a small family mill and progressed to senior leadership across plantation forestry. According to Green Triangle Forest Products’ company profile, Mr Hein leads the company’s plantation operations in the region and has spent more than four decades in plantation management and industry leadership. Over that time, he has been credited with championing workplace safety, embedding stronger on‑site practices and driving workforce development, work that industry figures say has helped consolidate the Green Triangle’s reputation as a high‑performance plantation region.

Meanwhile, Stephen Van Schaik was honoured for building Van Schaik’s Bio Gro into a regional business that converts timber mill residues and other organic streams into soil amendments, mulches, and horticultural products. Van Schaik’s Bio Gro’s company information states the business was developed by the Van Schaik family to process timber residues and supply composts and growing media to horticulture and agriculture markets, supporting the article’s description of Mr Van Schaik as an early adopter of circular‑economy practices that create jobs and divert waste from landfill.

Organisers said the Timber Legends citations recognise long‑term mentorship, community impact, and practical contributions that will shape forestry practice for years to come, as the awards night brought together growers, suppliers, and policymakers to celebrate operational excellence and value‑adding innovation across the timber supply chain.

Kennedy’s Timbers received the Partnership Excellence Award for a long‑running collaboration with Endeavour Foundation that integrates people with disability into production for nationwide architectural projects. “Well, we certainly didn’t expect to be a finalist, and now a winner,” said Michael Kennedy, of Kennedy’s Timbers. “Initially, we didn’t know how to navigate the partnership or what was involved in hosting people with disability at our site, but we were shown the ropes and now wouldn’t work without our Endeavour crew. They do such great work with us.”

“We now know what’s possible, and we can’t wait to continue this partnership. “In our case, we’ve also found people really enjoy working with timber because it’s an organic material, and it’s creating products that are so magnificent; they gain a real sense of achievement from turning a lump of wood into a piece of timber that will go into an architectural home,” Kennedy said. “We would encourage other employers to take our experience on board and partner with Endeavour Foundation because great things can come out of it.”

Meanwhile, Maryborough Cross Arm Mill won the Results That Shine Award after producing more than 47,000 timber crossarms annually — totalling more than 5.8 million kilograms of timber — and repurposing offcuts into stakes and pallets while providing supported employees with training and clear pathways to mainstream employment. “This win is not only about our team, but everything we achieve together,” according to Russell Shipp, site manager at the mill. “In terms of providing support for people with disability, we are passionate about the pathways our employees take when with us from supported to mainstream employment, and I’m happy to say the employees with us now are excited for that next step.”

“Timber work is hands-on, and with that comes a great opportunity for employees to create, replicate and build strong elements to aid even bigger works. It’s physical, it’s exciting, and we are just so honoured to have achieved this award.”

Endeavour Foundation’s Head of Philanthropy, Sharon Wood, said the awards were created to spotlight individuals within the community, allowing them to shine and be recognised for their impressive contributions on an industry stage: “From researchers who are paving the way in inclusive humanoid robotics, an organisation who’s helped us create Accessible Tourism videos in the Whitsundays, a business boosting fundraising dollars by donating $1 for every work hour, a family who’s helped to donate a tractor for our Bundaberg farm, or another business who’s creating job opportunities and sustainable work solutions at the same time … and the list goes on.”

Clarissa Brandt, Acting CEO of Timber Queensland, commended Kennedy’s Timbers and the Maryborough Cross Arm Mill for taking a lead in increasing workforce diversity. “Having the Endeavour Foundation’s first Business Excellence and Impact Awards recognise two timber industry-related businesses highlights the workforce development opportunities for businesses willing to look outside the box,” Brandt said. “They’ve created a win‑win situation – developing a capable and committed workforce in a tight labour market and offering opportunities to learn and grow to individuals who often face challenges finding suitable employment.”

Brandt said Timber Queensland last year partnered with Jobs Queensland to develop a workforce plan for the Wide Bay region: “This plan prioritises working with people with a disability to tap into the potential of an underutilised talent pool and implementing innovative strategies for career development,” she said. “We are thrilled that Kennedy’s Timbers and the Maryborough Cross Arm Mill have been recognised for providing direction and showcasing how to do the job.”

Other winners included Shamrock Civil (Charity Champion), Chloe Haidenhofer (Advocacy in Action) and Komatsu Australia (Community Leadership). The ceremony also acknowledged six long‑standing partners that have supported Endeavour Foundation for 25 years or more, including Woolworths, Payne Print, Henkel, Clorox, Podravka and Mackay Sugars. Endeavour Foundation encouraged businesses interested in employing people with disability to explore its programs and supports via endeavour.com.au.

The projects, chosen in London from more than 400 case studies across 38 countries, form the backbone of McCloud’s film. They span dense urban housing, retrofit conversions, disassemblable prototypes, large‑scale affordable housing, place‑based civic works and resilient public infrastructure:

• Appelweg, Amsterdam (Moos for client Ymere) — A four‑storey hybrid that stitches CLT into a concrete urban block, specifying roughly 1,350 m³ of timber to deliver density with lower upfront carbon.
• The Black and White Building, London (Waugh Thistleton) — A six‑storey post‑and‑beam retrofit that demonstrates how adaptive reuse and engineered timber cut embodied emissions while extending a building’s life.
• Circular Two‑Bedroom Home, Kampala (Easy Housing Concepts Uganda) — A 76 m² prefabricated, disassemblable house that translates circularity into an affordable, repairable prototype.
• Heartwood, Seattle (atelierjones) — An eight‑storey hybrid mass‑timber residential scheme showing that multi‑storey timber can meet scale, cost and embodied‑carbon targets for volume housing.
• La Maison de la réserve écologique, Épinay‑sur‑Seine (Archipel Zéro) — A two‑storey civic project pairing glulam with straw, compressed earth and recycled cellulose to reduce timber demand and strengthen local circular supply chains.
• Queensland Fire and Emergency Services North Coast Regional Headquarters & Maryborough Fire and Rescue, Maryborough (Baber Studio) — A two‑storey, 2,695 m² prefabricated CLT and glulam civic complex praised for rapid assembly, cyclone resilience and measurable carbon savings.

All six winners were judged under the Principles for Responsible Timber Construction, a global framework requiring full disclosure on materials, whole‑life carbon, certification and reuse strategies. Judges narrowed a 28‑project shortlist and were tested against five criteria: extending the life of existing buildings; accounting for whole life; ensuring sustainable forest management; maximising timber’s carbon‑storage potential; and promoting a timber building bioeconomy.

According to Paul King, Built by Nature’s CEO and chair of the judging panel, the Prize celebrates the organisations driving real change around the world, transforming construction for a regenerative future. “The ambition of this year’s winners and commendations speaks volumes about the progress being made in timber construction globally,” he said. “These are not just buildings; they are bold, real‑world demonstrations of what’s possible when design, material, and purpose align with the Principles for Responsible Timber Construction.”

Meanwhile, McCloud put the winners to the test of practice and policy: “These projects challenge outdated assumptions and show that timber is not only safe and sustainable, but also socially transformative. From fire stations to social housing, they prove that wood can be the material of resilience, beauty, and bold innovation.” Whilst Mae‑ling Lokko of Yale, a fellow judge, said each project shows how circular design and local ecosystems can come together to create buildings that are regenerative, inclusive, and deeply rooted in place. “They are blueprints for a future we urgently need.”

Our Future: Built by Nature will screen at the Museum of Art in São Paulo on 8 November before its COP30 premiere in Belém, where the Principles — already endorsed by more than 260 organisations — will be presented to ministers, negotiators and procurement leaders.

Nestled on the company’s Mill City, Oregon, campus, the facility serves dual roles: it houses 6,000 plywood panels and functions as a live showcase for Freres’s patented Mass Ply Panels (MPP) and Mass Ply Lams (MPL). A 40-by-48-foot structural grid supports four truck loading bays, two tarping stations and an uncluttered interior—an open span typically reserved for tilt-up concrete or steel-frame warehouses.

“Of course, I think wood is one of the most remarkable building materials that we have to build with,” according to Tyler Freres, vice president of sales, who spoke to Fast Company about the warehouse. “Engineered-wood products like those used in the warehouse really expand the scope of sustainable construction.”

Designed by Crow Engineering and constructed by CD Redding Construction, the project relies on prefabricated timber walls and roof elements, which accelerated the schedule by three months and reduced construction costs by 20%. Instead of pouring concrete panels on-site, crews installed factory-built Mass Ply sections in a matter of days—replacing a process that can add weeks to a typical project timeline.

Beyond cost and time, the environmental benefits are enormous.

By substituting steel and concrete with mass timber, Freres avoided 429 metric tons of embodied greenhouse-gas emissions—equivalent to removing more than 300 cars from the road for a year. The company projects a total carbon benefit of 1,539 metric tons, comparable to powering 163 homes for a year.

“As it is now, you only have two opportunities for warehouses: concrete tilt-up construction or pre-engineered metal buildings,” said Kyle Freres, vice president of operations, who spoke after the project’s opening late last year. “There’s been a lot of exploration to see if wood can provide a viable alternative to these methods, and the new mass timber warehouse demonstrates that wood can offer a quicker and more effective means of constructing large-format warehouses.”

Wood Central understands that the warehouse marks Freres’s largest industrial application of its Mass Ply system to date. Earlier deployments included an office pavilion and a university research centre, but neither matched the clear-span scale achieved here.

One of his most celebrated projects is the Maryborough Fire and Rescue Station—the first fire station in Australia built from Responsible Wood and PEFC-certified mass timber. Designed in collaboration with engineer Bligh Tanner, XLam (Australia’s first CLT manufacturer), Hyne Timber (one of the country’s oldest timber companies), and Hutchinson Builders, the cyclone-rated emergency services building contains 500 cubic metres of Australian-grown timber sourced from certified softwood plantations.

The project was the result of years of advocacy to the Queensland Government and a collaborative effort across disciplines. “It was really rewarding to see that effort translate into a timber building that’s so valued by both its users and the local community,” Baber said. In 2022, Baber was among a team that was awarded the Richard Stanton Memorial Leadership Award for his work on the fire station and his total commitment to “chain of custody” certification. The award, presented by Responsible Wood, recognises individuals who demonstrate leadership in sustainable forest management and certified timber design.

“As architects and designers, we have a lot of responsibility to ensure selection of the materials we use—and the impact of the buildings we create—are managed in a responsible way,” Baber said when reflecting on the award. And with nominations for this year’s Richard Stanton Award closing Friday, 15 August 2025, Baber believes recognition through awards like this plays a broader role in promoting better practice across the industry. “It’s not just about recognising good design practices,” he said. “We need to understand where materials are coming from, that they’re being used properly and how that’s going to impact the future life of the building—and the footprint of the resource extraction from the current environment.”

Fittingly, Baber used award’s $2,000 bursary o travel to Japan, where he presented at a Tohoku University seminar series focused on resilient timber design. “In Japan, their focus is often seismic resilience, but they’re also facing typhoons and tsunamis,” he said. “We were able to share insights into designing for cyclonic conditions here in Australia. I was able to put my bursary towards making that trip happen.”

The Maryborough project also showcased the power of technology. Baber and the University of Queensland carried out a full 3D scan of the original 1950s building, providing the team with key intellectual property and demonstrating how digital tools can inform not only commercial buildings and fire stations, but also complex artefacts and World Heritage Sites.

Kim Baber is also a Gottstein Trust fellow

In 2016—just before XLam opened Australia’s first CLT plant in Albury-Wodonga—he received a Gottstein Trust Fellowship to study timber architecture and fabrication technologies in Europe and Japan. His research project, The Expressive Capacity of Timber in Architecture, explored how exposed timber structures can be both pragmatic and expressive in modern construction.

Baber wrote that the project aimed to “identify why the use of expressed timber structure in construction may be considered beneficial and pragmatic…can be implemented effectively in construction.” “It was important for us (on the Maryborough project) to understand what worked well overseas, with a number of similar-use facilities already demonstrating mass timber as a sustainable and ideal building solution,” Baber told Wood Central’s Jim Bowden in 2022.

About the Richard Stanton Memorial Leadership Award

Established in 2015, the Richard Stanton Memorial Leadership Award honours individuals who have made significant contributions to sustainable forest management or chain of custody certification under the Responsible Wood Certification Scheme. The award includes a $2,000 bursary to support professional development, such as conference travel, training, or research.

Nominees are recognised for excellence in areas such as:

• Innovation in sustainable forest management
• Promotion of certified forest products
• Commitment to the principles of Responsible Wood and PEFC certification

Nominations for the 2025 award close at 5:00 pm on Friday, 15 August. To learn more or submit a nomination, visit the Responsible Wood website.

Sarah Lindsay, chair of the jury for the 2025 Tasmanian Australian Institute of Architects Awards, said the winners each exemplify the best in Tasmanian architecture. “The projects for this year’s awards sparked rich and thought-provoking conversations, touching on themes such as sustainable forestry practices, trauma-informed design, education pedagogies and the urgent housing crisis,” she said. “The discussions reminded us of the profound role in shaping not just our built environment, but our collective future.”

Designed by TERROIR (St Luke’s) and Wardle (The Shed), both projects used timber-led solutions (Xlam and Cusp’s cross-laminated timber and Hess Timber’s glulam for St Luke’s and Australian Sustainable Hardwood’s MASSLAM for The Shed) to tackle sustainability.

For Scott Balmforth, director of TERRIOR, the decision to use timber (over concrete) not only accelerated construction time frames and tackled emissions but, importantly, also improved workers’ well-being: “St Luke’s were brilliant,” Balmforth said. “They saw it as an opportunity, they saw the benefits that it would give them – that mass timber gives you, just the sense of walking in,” he said. “The challenges of delivering a building like that, particularly in a regional place (like Launceston), were really rewarding.”

Meanwhile, for Wardle, the $97 million The Shed can almost be unbolted and recycled in many years to come: “The nature of the timber frames, the windows, the steel outer frames, the cladding, the sun protection devices, the roofing, the glazing systems, all can be unbolted and recurred when needed in many years time,” John Wardle said.

Speaking to the Examiner, Wardle and Balmforth said they were honoured to receive the awards and have been humbled by the community’s interaction with the buildings. Blamforth said he’s received praise from the building’s office workers and visitors: “It’s touching to go there on an early morning and see parents bringing their kids and playing in the play area, or having a coffee as people are coming and going to work for the day, seeing the life within the building.”

Whilst Wardle said he was looking forward to seeing how The Shed would affect the generations to come, with hopes that The Shed would invite people who had never considered going to university to visit the campus”

“Rufus Black stated, very profoundly, the importance of these buildings,” he said. “It’s quite symbolic as a building that it attracts people who generally may have never been to university, to come and enter through these very open and inviting entry portals and feel at home and harmonised.”

• To learn more about St Luke’s new building, which is faster, greener and safer than traditional steel-and-concrete construction, click here for Wood Central’s special feature from July 2024.

This afternoon, Wood Central spoke to Andrew Dunn, the long-time organiser, who confirmed that entries for this year’s awards have been extended to July 11, 2025. Dunn said that the awards always attract a wide variety of entries, ranging from large mass timber projects like the Michael Kirkby building (winner of last year’s People’s Choice) to Irrawaddy House, which drew its inspiration from traditional Burmese delta houses.

“One of the most interesting projects last year was the MarraMarra shack – a true Grand Design,” Dunn said. “Winner of last year’s recycled timber category, it combines 200-year-old recycled ironbark telegraph poles and spotted gum in the exposed floor and ceiling post-and-beam system with pine plywood manufactured into laminated veneer lumber (LVL) to create a lightweight floor floating the waterway.”

Designed by Leopold Banchini Architects, the BAL-FZ-rated 2-bedroom, 1-bath dwelling floats above” a steep elevation at the junction of the Hawkesbury River and Berowra Creek – less than an hour from the centre of Sydney: “The shack is almost entirely constructed from timber,” according to the Swiss-based Leopold Banchini, who said two carpenters could only access the work site via boat: “The materials had to be small and light enough to fit on a barge and lifted without heavy machinery, timber was a perfect choice.”

What goes into a successful application? We spoke to a past judge!

According to David Rawlinson, a three-time judge of the awards, the key is to state how timber use positively contributes to a project’s sustainability.  “For example, as a key element in Passivhaus design, how timber provides increased thermal resistance and hence reduces heating and cooling load, or the fact that timber reduces the mass of the building and hence the size of the substructure required.”

“Perhaps it’s the way that mass timber can help dematerialise an open plan office with exposed timber soffits, columns and beams with no finishes required, or the way that the use of Design for Manufacture and Assembly can help the building to be disassembled at the end of its life, hence providing a focus for circular design thinking.”

“There are many more that could be included, so to stand out from the crowd, it’s essential to focus on these additional advantages that the use of timber provides,” he said. “From a broader architectural perspective, it’s also important to highlight how the exemplary use of timber has contributed to the building’s essential essence.”

Designed by Leopold Banchini Architects, the BAL-FZ-rated 2-bedroom, 1-bath dwelling is a past winner of the Australian Timber Design Awards—Recycled Timber Category (sponsored by Kennedy Timbers). It combines recycled ironbark telegraph poles and spotted gum in the exposed floor and ceiling post-and-beam system with pine plywood manufactured into laminated veneer lumber (LVL) to create a lightweight floor floating the waterway.

According to Banchini, the timber posts are repurposed from 200-year-old telegraph poles installed by early settlers along the Hawkesbury River: “Similarly, the roof beams, made up of recycled Spotted gum, were grown locally in the Darug region. Offcuts from these, as well as Turpentine timber from the old jetty, were used to build the furniture and joinery.”

Cocooned inside the Marramarra National Park, it sits inside a sloping 809 square metre block and “is the perfect paradise for canoeing, kayaking, swimming, boating, bushwalking and birdwatching,” according to an REA listing earlier this year. “To minimise disruption… the shack appears to float above the sloped site by stepping the floor structure and cantilevering the floor bearers off the timber posts,” Banchini said. “The stepped floor defines the architectural program and the structural grid. With a post and beam structure only 1.5m apart, the secondary structure was constructed from small LVL sections.”

The Australian Timber Design Awards is back for 2025!

Applications for the 2025 Australian Timber Design Awards are now open and will close in June. Now in their 26th year, the Australian Timber Design Awards are distinguished by their proud heritage of innovation and achievement—including the Bates Smart-designed Australian Embassy building in Washington, D.C., which last year secured the Australian Timber Design Awards Grand Prize.

Andrew Dunn, CEO of the Timber Development Association and awards organiser, said the awards promote and encourage outstanding timber design: “It is open to anyone involved in designing or building structures that feature timber.”

“You’ve only got to look at the award winners from last year, including the Bates Smart-designed Australian embassy in Washington DC – recipient of the Australian Timber Design Grand Prize, as well as the Berninneit Cultural and Community Centre – which Anthony Burke, the host of Restoration Australia and Grand Designs Australia, said was Australia’s most sustainable timber building.”

Now in its 26th year, Dunn said that the deadline for nominations for this year’s award categories is fast approaching – June 12, 2025—with the judging panel expecting the calibre of entries to surpass previous years: “The Awards promote and encourage outstanding timber design,” Dunn said. “It is open to anyone involved in designing or building structures that  feature timber, ranging from large-scale projects involving mass timber to recycled and framed timber projects in the residential industry.”

What goes into a successful application? We spoke to a past judge!

According to David Rawlinson, a three-time judge of the awards, the key is to state the ways that timber use positively contributes to a project’s sustainability. “For example, as a key element in Passivhaus design, how timber provides increased thermal resistance and hence reduces heating and cooling load, or the fact that timber reduces the mass of the building and hence the size of the substructure required.”

“Perhaps it’s the way that mass timber can help dematerialise an open plan office with exposed timber soffits, columns and beams with no finishes required, or the way that the use of Design for Manufacture and Assembly can help the building to be disassembled at the end of its life, hence providing a focus for circular design thinking.”

“There are many more that could be included, so to stand out from the crowd, it’s essential to focus on these additional advantages that the use of timber provides,” he said. “From a broader architectural perspective, it’s also important to highlight how the exemplary use of timber has contributed to the building’s essential essence.”