Metsä Wood’s Open Source Wood initiative is a call to action to architects, designers and engineers to join forces, share innovation and contribute knowledge about large-scale, modular wood construction.

 Today the construction industry is dominated by two materials – steel and concrete. Only a fraction (5-10%) of global urban construction is wood, due in part to the fact that the industry is fragmented and local. 

Timber technology is progressing quickly, making wood an increasingly competitive option. However, most innovations in engineered wood go largely unacknowledged beyond their immediate locality. There isplenty of innovation, but it’s often not so easy to find. 

By creating an open innovation platform around modular wood construction, Metsä Wood’s aim is to connect the local wood construction industry with global knowledge to facilitate collaboration and growth.  

By sharing your innovations and insights with your fellow modular wood experts around the world you can build a reputation for yourself internationally, and you’ll also benefit from advice and reviews of your work by our platform’s an expert panel. 

Why share?

The growing demand for renewable building materials calls for knowledge transfer across the globe. Eric Karsh, Principal at Equilibrium Consulting Inc., encourages all professionals to join Metsä Wood’s Open Source Wood initiative and share innovations in large-scale, modular wood construction. 

“There are pockets of expertise in timber engineering around the world, and we need new mechanisms to transfer information,” Eric Karsh explains: “Those who have it need to share it.” 

Openly sharing innovations enables professionals to connect with each other, grow the market and win more customers. The Open Source Wood initiative also offers the chance to efficiently collaborate with yourpeers – wherever they are. 

Inspired by open source ideology 

The initiative takes its inspiration from open source ideology, championed by the software industry, to drive innovation further and faster, and to increase speed to market.  

Metsä Wood is taking the first step by sharing its own intellectual property for modular Kerto® LVL wood elements – making them available freely for everyone – following the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 international license (CC BY 4.0). All shared elements are licensed CC BY 4.0. Creative Commons licenses provide a standard way for content creators to grant someone else permission to use their work. 

Take part in Open Source Wood

Design submissions for building modules and elements can be made at opensourcewood.com. The element design must be (at minimum) 50% from wood. Metsä Wood provides expert advice from its engineer team for the submitted elements.  

Elements will be published, along with Metsä Wood own designs, on an open platform which will be freely available for everyone to use, collaborate and submit designs. 

Learn more about Open Source Wood and how you can participate: www.opensourcewood.com

Open Source Wood is a continuation of Metsä Wood’s project Plan B, launched in 2015 as an ambitious blueprint to explore the possibilities of using wood in urban construction.