{"id":23730,"date":"2025-02-12T15:08:51","date_gmt":"2025-02-12T05:08:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/woodcentral.com.au\/?p=23730"},"modified":"2025-02-13T21:01:51","modified_gmt":"2025-02-13T11:01:51","slug":"building-a-house-in-7-weeks-japans-2x4-fix-for-australias-crisis","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/woodcentral.com.au\/building-a-house-in-7-weeks-japans-2x4-fix-for-australias-crisis\/","title":{"rendered":"Building a House in 7 Weeks \u2014 Japan\u2019s 2×4 Fix for Australia’s Crisis"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Post and beam construction – where workers work to build hundreds (or thousands) of two-by-four-framed houses in state-of-the-art factories – could be a silver bullet for Australia’s housing crisis  – with new research revealing that 25 metro and regional markets “are critically undersupplied.”<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

That is according to Simon Love, director of Japanese Timber Australia<\/a>, a leading supplier of Japanese timber in the Australian marketplace: “The Japanese post-and-beam system is highly efficient, and a house can be completed, absolutely completed, in seven weeks.”<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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“The system is efficient, accurate, and easy to install on-site. Everything is delivered on time,” Mr Love said. However, he said they do (some) things differently from Australia: “They only deliver one or two days’ worth of material to the site. It’s all pre-cut, so no waste. They get a lot more deliveries and, thus, can complete the construction in fast time.”<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

And whilst the model could be a challenge in some rural areas – Mr Love said it could be a winner in cities – like Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane…and even Newcastle, where builders can drive up volumetric construction: “We built display homes in Newcastle – we invited all the local builders and developers, no one had seen frames and construction go up that quickly.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

According to Graham Sayer, director of Japanese Lumber<\/a> – a native New Zealander with entrenched relationships with sawmills and merchants across the country, Japan is the world’s fourth-largest market for timber construction, home to some of the world’s most important projects: “Bricks weren’t introduced here until the 1860s (via the Germans); it’s not a civilisation built on bricks (or stone) like many European civilisations.”<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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