Industrialization of building processes - A chance for timber to take the lead

All over the world the same phenomenon is observed: People are moving towards the cities. As a result, most of the cities are growing and suffer from sufficient housing capacities. Upon others this leads to prohibitive prices for flats compared to the income of most citizens. Therefore - especially for social housing - cheap and effective solutions to build more residential buildings are desperately needed but must be combined with acceptable and sustainable architecture! For building solutions, a real industrial standard is needed - useable by architects, engineers, developers and builders. Company-based solutions are not sufficient. In a recent research project, it is shown that at least 25% of the building costs is related to additional and unnecessary design. As a result, a BIM based general design model based on 3D-planning and building units should be established. While timber is a perfect material for prefabrication and wood building industry is already trained in prefabrication including partly installation of building services, further development is a big chance for timber to take the lead in a future industrialization process of the building industry.