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Veteran developer Barrie Harrop has revived plans for a $250m timber hotel in the heart of the Adelaide CBD, with construction set to kick off before the end of the year. Source: Timberbiz The 31-level tower will be built behind and above an existing office tower, the heritage-listed former MLC building at 187 Victoria Square. The project was first announced in 2022. Green Street News reports that the carbon-neutral development building, designed by Cox Architecture and to be built out of cross-laminated timber and green steel, will offer 324 hotel suites, 20 residential apartments and four sub-penthouses. Tier-one builder Multiplex is set to build the upmarket lifestyle hotel, which will be operated by a “globally recognised international hotelier”. Green Street News reports that the property could welcome guests by late 2026 or early 2027. “The development is being undertaken by Thrive Construct, which Harrop runs with fellow Adelaide developer Peter Villis. The firm focuses on carbon-neutral projects using modular or prefabricated construction techniques.

This year marks a decade since Scion adopted unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) as a research tool forging a path towards more effective forest management. Source: Timberbiz A pioneer in the field of UAV research, the Crown Research Institute bought its first drone in February 2015. Since then, UAVs have become a key tool for aerial data capture, for use in high-definition mapping and monitoring of forests. Scion also uses them for 3D modelling, sample collection, sub-canopy data captures and various types of imaging across multiple programs. It is the only Crown Research Institute with Civil Aviation Authority Part 102 higher tier certification, which enables it to undertake UAV activity outside what standard operational licences allow. Scion scientist Robin Hartley says UAVs add a lot of value to the organisation’s research. “We regularly capture high-definition LIDAR for measuring trees. We can get ultra high-resolution maps of stands and trials, we are capturing spectral and thermal data to understand more about tree physiology remotely, and we’re working with companies to develop UAV spray systems specific to forestry needs. We’re also exploring niche areas such as sub-canopy flying for characterising stem and branch structure and collecting upper canopy samples.” The autonomous systems team has worked with other teams across Scion and industry over the past 10 years to enable them to adopt UAV technologies. “There is plenty of potential for UAVs to be used for other purposes within research and commercial forest management, too, such as forest inventory, phenotyping and manual applications such as spraying and planting,” Mr Hartley said. It all started in 2012, when research group leader David Pont was a scientist monitoring the development of UAVs and miniaturised laser scanning technologies. By 2015 a commercially available scanner had been matched to a drone from Aeronavics, a NZ-based UAV company working with the Hollywood film industry. At the time, a geomatics team was being formed at Scion that comprised scientists with expertise in airborne LiDAR. A state-of-the-art LidarPod weighing 3kg was bought from Scotland, and the Scion team ordered the largest UAV they could find to carry it. This UAV gave Scion a modern way to laser scan forest stands. Scion staff Toby Stovold, Kane Fleet and Marie Heaphie (who has since left the organisation), learned to fly a small UAV, which meant when the larger craft arrived, they were ready to deploy it for forestry research. The wider industry took notice as the technology continued to develop. Several forestry companies have since invested in trials and built their own in-house UAV capacity. The strong industry adoption was highlighted in a 2020 study that showed 83% of forestry companies in NZ use UAVs to capture aerial imagery, compared with none in an earlier 2013 survey. Scion also helped set up the Tools for Foresters (TFF) industry initiative, which connects researchers and foresters using UAVs in forests to share research, knowledge and resources. This helps enhance UAV technology development and encourage adoption of these tools. Timberlands inventory manager Michael Wilson says Scion’s work with UAVs over the past decade has helped shape how his company uses the technology in forest management operations. “Scion’s work helped us see what was possible with drone technology – from precision aerial mapping to advanced canopy analysis – and gave us the confidence to invest in UAVs ourselves. It’s hard to imagine modern forest management without them now.” Mr Hartley says Scion continues to work with forest managers to develop systems that are relevant and cost-effective. “A recent survey showed a 20% increase across some key UAV uses that have been developed and promoted through TFF.” Scion’s autonomous systems team is focused on advancing techniques for the capture and use of LiDAR, photogrammetry and thermal and multi-spectral imagery.

A new AI system that can automatically identify contaminated construction and demolition wood waste has been developed by researchers from Monash University and Charles Darwin University (CDU). Source: Timberbiz Published in Resources, Conservation & Recycling, the study presents the first real-world image dataset of contaminated wood waste, a major step toward smarter recycling and sustainable construction. The research team, led by Madini De Alwis with Dr Milad Bazli (CDU), under the supervision of Associate Professor Mehrdad Arashpour, Head of Construction Engineering at Monash, trained and tested cutting-edge deep learning models to detect contamination types in wood waste using images. Contaminated wood from construction and demolition sites often ends up in landfill due to the difficulty of sorting it manually. But by applying AI models the team found strong precision and recall across six types of wood contamination. “We curated the first real-world image dataset of contaminated construction and demolition wood waste,” said Mr De Alwis, a PhD candidate at Monash’s Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering. “This new system could be deployed via camera-enabled sorting lines, drones or handheld tools to support on-site decision-making.” While computer vision has been explored in general waste streams, its application to contaminated wood waste has remained limited, until now. “By fine-tuning state-of-the-art deep learning models, including CNNs and Transformers, we showed that these tools can automatically recognise contamination types in wood using everyday RGB images,” Dr Bazli said. Wood waste is one of the largest components of construction waste globally. Most of it can be recycled, but contamination from paint, chemicals, metals and other construction residues makes sorting difficult and costly. “This opens the door to scalable, AI-driven solutions that support wood waste reuse, recycling and reclamation,” Dr Bazli said. By integrating AI with waste management practices, the study supports Australia’s circular economy goals and the global push for greener construction. “This is a practical, scalable solution for a global waste problem. By enabling automated sorting, we’re giving recyclers and contractors a powerful tool to recover valuable resources and reduce landfill dependency,” Mr De Alwis said.

Millions of eucalypt and pine seedlings are being dispatched across NSW ahead of the annual State Forest planting season. Grown from seed at Forestry Corporation’s Grafton and Tumut nurseries these seedlings will provide NSW with sustainable timber resources for the future. Source: Timberbiz In coming months, the seedlings will be mostly planted by hand in recently harvested compartments, regrowing these forests with trees for the future. Forestry Corporation’s seedling stock will be supplemented with stock purchased from HQP in Queensland to produce the high-quality timber that is important to the plywood industry and used for furniture, veneer, joinery, panelling, particle board, flooring and boats. Forestry Corporation every year plants the equivalent of 14,000 football fields in plantations. Forestry Corporation’s nursery staff play a huge hand in increasing the state’s timber resources. “Our nurseries combined raise around 11 million new trees every year for the replanting of state forests across NSW. Most are grown from seed, while others are sourced externally to ensure a diverse and resilient plantation stock,” Grafton Nursery Manager Karen Morrow said. “Here in Grafton, we are currently dispatching 300,000 hardwood seedlings, 380,000 softwood seedlings and a heap of specialty seedling orders. “We have raised and dispatched 29,000 koala feed trees that will be hugely important in creating koala habitat through community and private property planting projects. “An additional 15,000 Christmas tree seedlings have just been dispatched, along with 6,000 eucalyptus seedings for a private customer and another 23,000 eucalyptus seedlings will be dispatched for planting in June,” she said. Mechanical planting of hoop pine is also set to start at Pikapene near Grafton. A large replanting program will see around 700,000 radiata seedlings planted in New England pine forests in the Walcha district. Half of those seedlings were transferred to Inverell for hardening in April, where they will stay until the plantings commence in July. Dispatch will also take place from the Tumut nursery, which focuses on radiata pine in areas like Tumut, Bombala and Bathurst. Every year NSW’s softwood plantations grow enough timber to build more than 40,000 homes a year. Hardwood forests continue to produce incredible engineered products, such as the timber interior of the Sydney Opera House, but it’s the everyday uses where the timber is most needed producing power poles, marine wharf piers, timber pallets, timber flooring, decking and furniture. Combined, the NSW forestry industry generates an estimated $2.4 billion for the economy employing 22,000 people in NSW. For more information on replanting programs and forest management visit www.forestrycorporation.com.au

Sterling Structural, a pioneer in domestically sourced and manufactured mass timber solutions in the United States, has officially joined the CLT Toolbox platform, a global design software platform that empowers structural engineers to specify timber faster, more accurately, and in line with real supplier data. Source: Timberbiz Designed to advance the adoption of sustainable timber construction across Australia, CLT Toolbox offers engineers, students, and timber enthusiasts’ access to cutting-edge tools and educational resources, empowering a new generation to contribute to a sustainable future. The platform enables education alongside design enabling engineers to use mass timber. Its mission is to make CLT design easy, accessible, and aligned with supply chain realities – broadening engineering capacity across the region. CLT Toolbox is gearing up for a major launch later this year with added modules for fire design, diaphragm design, shear walls, connection details, and much more. Sterling is the first US Cross Laminated Timber supplier to partner with CLT Toolbox, enabling engineers to design with Sterling’s panels directly within the platform. Through the beta program, users can now create designs using wall and floor calculators tailored to Sterling’s products. Sterling Structural is a division within Sterling Solutions, one of America’s leading manufacturers of sustainably sourced, domestically produced, high-quality and cost-effective Cross Laminated Timber (CLT) mats, panels and systems. “The addition of Sterling Structural’s CLT panels and systems to the Toolbox will help advance the adoption of CLT and mass timber projects across the US,” said Adam Jones, CEO of CLT Toolbox. “Sterling is a leading CLT manufacturer, and their inclusion in the Toolbox offers an immediate opportunity for engineers to incorporate CLT into their projects.” With Sterling now fully integrated, engineers can design with Sterling’s CLT and glulam products, and get: Full design integration of Sterling CLT panels Instant capacity checks and reports aligned with U.S. codes Specification-ready outputs that streamline documentation “We’re on a mission to bring mass timber to the masses, and the CLT Toolbox is an integral part of achieving that mission,” said Michaela Harms, Vice President of Mass Timber at Sterling Structural. “When we make it easy to design for CLT and mass timber, we make it easy to incorporate mass timber. We’re looking forward to seeing how this new resource boosts interest and use of CLT in projects of all shapes and sizes.” This partnership comes at a critical time in US construction as developers demand lower carbon, faster, and more beautiful buildings. Sterling’s presence on CLT Toolbox brings scalable, modern tools into the hands of structural engineers unlocking the full potential of mass timber design.