Markus Derix © Derix-Gruppe
Mr. Derix, the Derix group is planning to launch one of the country's biggest CLT lines in the summer of 2019 at the Westerkappeln site. How much potential does the current shooting star cross-laminated timber have in your opinion?
Actually, we first introduced cross-laminated timber into our existing glulam and timber engineering production in 2011 as a complementary product only. But we quickly noticed an increasing demand for the product.
Unlike with glulam, its potential is huge since CLT is not limited to roof constructions and substructures. Cross-laminated timber can also replace reinforced concrete and brick work. Of course it is hard to assess the limits of growth but between 1995 and 2015, the production volume increased by 125% in cycles of five years. If this exponential development continues the resulting prognosis for 2025 is 3 million m³.
How much CLT will Derix be contributing to this increase in the future?
Primarily, we will work in accordance with the market. Not the technical capacity of the facilities but rather profitability is central to us. There are no plans for a regular three-shift operation – we are rather aiming at a clocked production with maximally six days between order and construction site. As for technical capacity, we do not want to disclose further details.
Who on the market are you targeting with your CLT products in the future?
Of course we will also keep realizing our own projects. Furthermore, however, we are clearly focusing on further processors. It is important to optimally support them with regard to planning and to build long-term strategic partnerships. Especially for large-scale projects, it is often executing companies that are the limiting factor. If for instance an architect approaches us with plans to realize a seven-story building there are only a few companies that we can recommend. The industry's run on such companies has long begun.
CLT has significantly more potential than glulam since it can replace reinforced concrete as well as brick work.
Which types of wood do you rely on for production?
We mainly focus on spruce – furthermore, Derix is also working on CLT from pine and larch wood.
And how much potential do you see for solid hardwood products?
For 20 years, beech has been a focal point but has still not caught on yet, aside from BauBuche by Pollmeier [laminated veneer lumber made from beech]. I think it will be more about achieving the same load capacity with less material - keyword wooden box and rib elements.
Do you see a problem regarding raw materials supply?
For the last 25 years, we hardly encountered any supply problems. Still, raw materials supply could become a limiting factor in the future. Furthermore, material saving always has a positive effect on the costs situation.
Do you have any concrete plans for how to stand out against other providers of the product in the future?
The big strength of our cross-laminated timber elements is the high degree of prefabrication. On the construction site, the components only have to be mounted which goes smoothly and fast thanks to a high fitting accuracy. With this they constitute a clear advantage compared to traditional solid construction. And it is this advantage that we must further expand by continuously increasing the degree of prefabrication.
Even though we are still testing in which direction we want to develop after the joining process but as a preventive measure we already included additional hall space in our plans.
Almost weekly, we report on new height records in timber construction. Does this striving towards the sky in your opinion make sense?
Projects like that are important because they bring modern timber construction into the focus of public attention and show what is possible with wood nowadays. However, I do not think that this will be our big future. Five storeys already offer enough potential. It would be important to reduce limitations due to building regulations as well as federal obstacles. Here in North Rhine-Westphalia for instance it is legally difficult to build beyond three storeys from wood – across the border in Belgium, however, this is not a problem.
Here you can download the German PDF of the CLT Special 2018 issue:
