Pub-Wood, Sustainable Public Buildings Designed and Constructed in Wood

Nowadays advanced companies in the construction sector are keen to use construction materials that have a lower environmental impact, and in this context stakeholders increasingly seeing wood as the natural and sustainable option for large public buildings. If public institutions and business enterprises express their ecological concerns by using wood constructions for public buildings, this is a clear indicator of a mature society who focuses on sustainable development.
Education in wooden design and construction is still very limited across the Europe. Most of HEIs that have technical degrees in design, construction and materials for complex buildings have curricular implementing the studies of concrete and steel, being prefabricated or manufactured on site. Normally education in construction from wood focuses on one to two storey buildings (i.e. family houses). Thus there is an urgent need to educate students with innovative applied skills needed in the area of massive wooden structures and large public buildings’ construction at the undergraduate degree level.

The wider objective of this project is to develop a trans-disciplinary and transnational course/ elective element in the EU HEIs on the design, construction and management of sustainable public wooden buildings in order to enhance the quality and relevance of students’ knowledge and skills for future labour market needs.

The project is funded by the Erasmus+ Programme of the European Union and implemented by five higher education institutions from Lithuania, Denmark, United Kingdom, Finland and Latvia.

1) To strategically research at which level sustainable design, construction and management of wooden public buildings are to be planned and implemented in the partner countries.
2) To educate all participants (students, teachers, entrepreneurs) in the field of the sustainable wooden construction.
3) To develop and implement the new strategic trans-disciplinary module/elective element, which meets the needs of the HEIs and market representatives, fulfils the future challenges of sustainable public wooden buildings’ design, construction and management.
4) To improve competencies of students and teachers in problem solving and team work, innovative thinking, motivation, awareness of cross-professional project input and project management by using real problem-based and blended learning approaches.
5) To ensure open awareness of the project results to local, national, EU level and international target groups.