This Soria-based organisation hosted the event, which brought together the eight partners of the Eguralt project from Spain, France and Portugal.

The Interreg SUDOE Eguralt project held its fifth Steering Committee on 1 and 2 December at the premises of the Cesefor Foundation in Soria. Eguralt consortium met throughout the day on Thursday to analyse the progress of the project. The following day, they made a study visit to the company Tableros Losán and the Casa de la Madera de Revenga.

Thus, on Thursday, the last actions carried out during this semester and those that are still pending were discussed. Subsequently, the technical meetings of the three working groups took place, in which the work carried out during this semester was explained in detail.

 

Technical Meetings

The technical meetings started with the presentation of the progress of Working Group 1 on the Diagnosis, exchange of knowledge and study of opportunities. Aline Barlet, Professor at ENSAP Bordeaux and Co-director of the ACCAU master’s degree started with the perception surveys of timber construction in the SUDOE area. Mario García, researcher at Cesefor, then spoke about the Guide on the state of wood construction in the SUDOE area. The meeting was closed by Maitane Zazu, Head of the Special Projects Section of Nasuvinsa, with the study of the prototype of a CLT building for housing.

After a short break, the technical meeting of Working Group 2 began. It deals with the experimentation of new processes, products and technologies for the optimisation of the use of wood in construction. Maitane Zazu (Nasuvinsa) began by explaining the advances in experimentation in the development of public housing. Dr Carlos Martins, researcher at SerQ, then presented experiments in pre-industrialisation processes with CLT concrete panels using local species.

After these two presentations, the progress of the three pilots developed in this Working Group was shared. The first pilot on “Glulam from local hardwoods” was presented by Carlos Martins (SerQ). This was followed by Denis Bruneau, Professor at ENSAP Bordeaux with pilot 2 “Passive or semi-active thermal mass in timber-framed building envelopes”. Azahara Soilán, Technician at XERA, closed this meeting with the pilot 3 “Technical solutions with CLT wood panels that meet the requirements of reaction to fire in indoor conditions”.

The technical meetings ended with Working Group 3 on Dissemination and capitalisation of knowledge and awareness raising for paradigm shift. Régis Le Normand, Senior Lecturer at ENSAP Bordeaux, opened the session by explaining the progress in the development of a training module on medium-rise timber construction. He was followed by Azahara Soilán (XERA) with a presentation of the video model of the experiments. Apolline Oswald, Head of European Projects at Xylofutur, continued by talking about the collaboration with international networks on timber construction at height. The meeting ended with the presentation of the awareness campaign on this type of construction by the contracted company Macarena Marketing.

Study visits

The Eguralt project consortium took advantage of the trip to Soria to make three study visits, in which they were able to see different wood construction processes. Thus, on Thursday 1 December they visited the Cesefor laboratory. The following day they visited the Tableros Losán facilities and the Casa de la Madera de Revenga.