When I look back and I think at the ESB building which is now a very nice example of how composite

can work. The ESB building is…. Has implemented two types of innovations.

The one innovation is the composite floor, the second innovation is composite stairs.

When we look at the composite floor, we look at a way of joining two advan… two materials joining
the advantages and eliminate the disadvantages. So at the UBC building we have an LVL panel and on
top of that LVL panel we have an insulating layer and on top of that we have a concrete panel. The
concrete and the timber is rigidly connected to the sheer connectage and that allows for a very slim
floor with an outstanding performance that would reduce total weight by a factor of 50 at least.

The concrete on the other had provides the compression zone, it provides the diaphragm, it provides
a fire barrier between one and the other floor and it provides the mass you need in order to put the
floor heating in.

The second innovation is the staircase. The staircase is a revolution, the way it has been built cause it
is a moment rigid connexion of a very flat glue lamp cross section. The real r°in the timber building
industry we have through the plate and the plate is a CLT plate you can use it in a wall, in a floor, in a
roof. It creates dire frame it creates euh bending capabilities.

So the plate was, combined with a stick, the r°.

So what we do with the connection is we have a finger joint but the jointing of the finger is not made
out of timber but it is made out of steel.

We glue in plates and therefore we glue in a material that has a plastic performance and the first
tests are of course static tests we call them push out tests. We have a picture there where you have a
push out test of a concrete layer, a timber layer and you push it against each other and you see how
stiff is that intersurface.

The next way would be a dynamic test: you don’t push it to the yielding, you push it a million times,
you push it 5 million times, you push it ten million times what happens. That’s another test that gives
you more answers.

The bending test is the next step. You actually go from a little specimen to a building component.

There’s also thermo tests, you have to test it under fire conditions.

All those testing on the composite system I’ve just explained had the final result that the weakest
element in the composite cross section was the steel.

We had that at the static test and we had that at the fatigue test so therefore the steel is the weakest
point and the steel is the material we know most and we can control most. And therefore we feel
most comfortable with the composite system. We think the steel as a moderator between concrete
and timber is a very smart way of doing this. The composite approach allows everybody involved in
buildings to do new magic that has not been done before and that’s the real beauty behind it.
It’s beneficial for the concrete guys, for the steel, for the users, for the contractors, it can be a very
beneficial tool for anybody involved in the building system.