Wood Infill Wall Demo House Attracts Korean Architects and Builders
Canada Wood Korea invited Korean architects and builders on a job site tour to the 5-story Social housing wood infill wall demo site in Seoul on March 13. The main purpose of this site visit was to introduce wood infill wall system and provide on-site training to those who are not familiar with this new innovative hybrid system. The site visit at the infill wall’s framing stage provides the Korean building industry and potential new entrants with a ‘shop window’ of insight into the skills and construction details to help better understand the system.
Question were raised on the construction details and benefits from the wood infill wall system comparing to the other structures. Having heard on the benefits from environmentally friendly, saving construction time and labor cost on site on using wood in buildings, the architects had expressed a strong interest in applying wood infill wall system to their future projects.
The chairman of the Korea Wood Construction Association (KWCA) also visited the site together with its member companies. “This wood infill wall demo project offers a good opportunity for the Korean wood construction industry, especially in the application of mid-rise buildings. It could appeal to many Korean architects and developers. Every year, a lot of mid-rise buildings are being built in concrete and steel structures” said the chairman.
Canada Wood Korea works closely with KWCA to plan more site visits for KWCA member builders and architects to promote the infill wall system.
Wood infill walls are gaining in popularity as they are now being used by several architects and builders and Crown corporations like Gyeonggi Urban Innovation Corporation (GICO), Seoul Housing Corporation (SHC) and Korea Land & Housing Corporation (LHC). Market growth follows from the Long Life Housing policy introduced in 2013 by MLIT that encourages the use of lightweight infill and partition walls to ease apartment and commercial building renovation.