Out of the Woods.(timber specification)

Agreed standards would provide a much-needed clarification of the grey areas of timber specifying, says Jay Merrick

Debate about the specification of timber products remains blurred at a time when architects are turning increasingly to wood to develop aesthetic and environmental gains in their projects.

In most cases, the truth is that architects and designers have been caught up in a kind of Punch & Judy show in which a variety of conflicting voices insist: "That's the way to do it."

Most architects will want to know at least two things about the timber materials they specify: how they are likely to perform, and whether they come from sustainable sources. It is not difficult to find out about performance: sources including Trada Technology, the Nordic Timber Council and the American Hardwood Export Council can cover this ground in detail. A new cradle-to-grave environmental profiling database being developed by the Building Research Establishment will refine these considerations by providing a level-playing-field methodology against which different building materials can be fairly judged.

But the question of timber sourcing remains fraught. Architects who have specified notable amounts of timber materials tend to cite the Forest Stewardship Council as the acceptable arbiter as far as independent certification of timber is concerned. The FSC's certification criteria have been developed over a number of years, and there is no question that its efforts -- combined with highly-effective publicity via the Worldwide Fund for Nature -- have brought the issue of sustainable timber into sharper focus.

But the FSC's laudable efforts should be seen against a stark perspective: of the world's 3 billion hectares of forest, only 13 million are FSC certified -- that's less than half of 1%. And of that minute FSC tranche, 8o% is in Poland and Sweden.

The fact is that there is very little FSC-certified material to be called upon. So where can reasonably well husbanded timber materials be found? And what might be described as "reasonably well husbanded"?