A new home for an old friend

11 August 2023 Sustainable construction

After serving as a meeting point for PEFC staff and visitors at World Architecture Festivals (WAF) in both Amsterdam and Lisbon, our show stand had reached the end of its first life. However, recognising that wood is a valuable natural resource, it was carefully dismantled and – in keeping with PEFC’s commitment to a circular economy – found a new home in Portugal.

Between 2018-2022, PEFC sponsored WAF’s Best Use of Certified Timber Prize, designed to recognise architects and project teams that had used certified timber to create a more sustainable built environment.

Throughout the period, PEFC’s stand, constructed using PEFC-certified cross-laminated timber (CLT) supplied by Piveteaubois, became a distinctive focal point in the exhibition hall.

The stand’s new owner is Associação Interprofissional da Floresta do Oeste (AFLOeste). AFLOeste promotes sustainable forest management in the west of Portugal, working in partnership with three other local forest owner organisations, to deliver and promote PEFC certification. They have held a regional forest management certificate since 2015 and are also a proud member of PEFC Portugal.

The AFLOeste team is thrilled to be reusing the PEFC stand to showcase timber in its own exhibitions and promotional events.

The stand is made from 1.5tn of certified wood and it was important to preserve and reuse the stand and to continue to store carbon.

The stand made its AFLOeste debut at the Festivities of Saint Peter’s of Torres Vedras last month, in collaboration with the local City Hall.

Sited at the main entrance of the Multipurpose Pavilion, close to the food court, the stand gained huge exposure and interest from attendees.

“Our PEFC-certified stand will help us achieve more visibility in the region. At the recent event, our stand was surrounded by trees and was used to show the work that different people and businesses do in the forest,” explained Filipe Melo from AFLOeste.

“It served as a great communication tool and provided us with an opportunity to explain forest certification in a unique space as part of our outreach activities to promote sustainable forest management to private forest owners, who represent 84% of the total forest ownership in Portugal.”

Around the world, architects are increasingly choosing mass timber to deliver high profile, award-winning projects and everyday designs. Looking to the future and recognizing the importance of communicating the need conserve our forests, the exhibition stand will continue to serve as an ’Itinerant Forest Chapel’ helping to demonstrate why circularity, the re-use of construction materials and responsible forestry are so important.

Under the theme Designing the Future with Sustainable Timber, a range of stakeholders have come together to promote the use of certified timber in construction, while demonstrating its importance as a material, in a circular, low carbon economy.

Photo credits: AFLOeste