Timber construction requires smart finishing

The Urban Woods in Delft is the tallest residential building in the Netherlands without a concrete core. Inside, FAAY walls and smart finishing details ensure comfort, speed and durability. Vellinga Project Realisatie supplies and assembles the walls and takes care of a large part of the interior finishing.

In this project, Vellinga Project Realisatie is again working with regular partner FAAY, producer of bio-based partition walls. The Urban Woods is a perfect example of the kind of projects Vellinga likes to work on, says technical director Oscar Vellinga. "It really is a very inspiring project to be working on. There is a very strong feeling that we are doing something new, something that can be an example for the whole industry and that, hopefully sooner than we think now, will become the standard. It's very nice to be involved in that."

In Delft, Vellinga provides delivery and installation of both house partitioning and room partitioning walls. "Thanks to our experience, we also take on additional jobs such as lowered ceilings, insulation against impact sound, finishes such as window sills and floor sills, and we install window frames. We also install fire- and moisture-resistant plasterboard in the stairwells and elevator halls."

Layer by layer

At The Urban Woods, the building literally grows out of the ground layer by layer. Each new storey floor marks the start of another round of completion. "As soon as a floor is finished, we deliver our materials. These are immediately enclosed by the next floor. The start of the final construction is on average two to three floors behind the structural work. We have a tight schedule where good communication and good preparation are really important." Practice turns out not always to be planned after all, Vellinga notices. "You keep making adjustments. And in a project like this, during execution, you are always looking for ways to improve and learn. It's always scraping and adjusting."

Faster and more efficient

The choice of FAAY walls is sustainable and practical. "We have been working with the FAAY walls for quite some time," says brother Taco Vellinga. "First mainly in retail. There they saw the advantages in speed: we know from experience that it is possible to build about forty percent faster on average compared to 'traditional' wall systems. In recent years, partly due to changing regulations, we have shifted our focus to residential construction. That's where we and FAAY want to make a difference."

Off the beaten path

Biobased construction also raises new questions. "Wood construction is not yet the standard and so you sometimes encounter issues that have not been solved before. With fire and noise requirements, you encounter different discussions than in concrete construction. You might be quick to revert to traditional ways of building, but they don't fit here. Then you have to come up with something else. And then it turns out that there are good alternatives that meet the standard. Where there is a will, there is a way." That requires intensive collaboration. "We are working with the team behind The Urban Woods and I see the challenges. It is great to see that they have such strong motivation and dare to say: this is how we are going to do it, and not otherwise!"