Fire safety design in modern timber buildings

Designers of the built environment are currently focused on creating new materials for construction, or innovating new construction methods with traditional construction materials. This is part of the very complex challenge of balancing environmental issues, such as energy use, with the ongoing market demand for reducing construction costs and time. This has led to a rapid rise in the uptake of timber, such as glued laminated timber (glulam) and cross-laminated timber (CLT), particularly in the design of multistorey residential buildings. This paper focuses on the design of tall timber construction for which many hybrid and composite forms of timber are being developed, resulting in a wide range of structural typologies.