Media Tour Held for SPF NLT Demonstration Project

Shawn Lawlor

By: Shawn Lawlor

Managing Director, Canada Wood Japan/COFI Japan

On April 26th Canada Wood Japan organized a media tour of Japan’s first large scale NLT(Nail-Laminated Timber) project in collaboration with Maeda Construction Company. A total of 9 of Japan’s leading architectural related media attended a presentation and site visit of the Tokyo University of the Arts International Exchange Center currently under construction in Tokyo’s Ueno district. At the event Shawn Lawlor briefed reporters on Canada Wood’s multi-year technical development of NLT for the Japanese market and detailed our involvement on this groundbreaking NLT project. Representatives from Maeda Construction provided participants with a site tour and relayed their experience with using NLT in this 5 storey steel frame and wooden hybrid structure. Construction is ongoing and the structure is expected to complete in October 2022. Canada Wood Japan is currently working on a case study video of this project so please stay tuned.

Tokyo University of the Arts International Exchange Centre, a Canada Wood Demonstration Project, is a 5-storey midrise structure of steel frame and wooden post & beam elements. The NLT floor panels are used on the 3rd, 4th and 5th levels of the structure. The NLT floor panel use was made possible thanks to the joint effort by Council of Forestry Industries , Japan 2×4 Home Builders Association and MLIT in obtaining the NLT floor assembly fireproof approval in 2020. The Canada Wood team have been working with Maeda Construction since 2019 to realize this first large scale application of NLT construction in Japan.

This is project is made possible through funding from the Government of Alberta