Significant advances and new experiences in state of the art design, construction and research in timber engineering are being made at these institutions and at several international organizations around the world. However, because of the lack of interest in wood during the majority of the XXth century, there is a need for the restoration of a network for information exchange and rejuvenation of the timber construction profession.
The World Conference on Timber Engineering is a forum for knowledge dissemination, leading to better education programs and more efficient research worldwide, and for defining the future direction of timber engineering research. The first international conference was held in Seattle, WA, USA, in 1988. The second, third and fourth conferences were held in Tokyo, Japan (1990), in London, UK (1991) and New Orleans, USA (1996). The fifth conference is to be held during the summer of 1998 in Montreux, CH. It is especially important as it will coincide with the 20th anniversary of the Timber construction chair at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, Lausanne, which was for a long time the only chair dedicated to timber engineering in the world.
The objectives of this conference are therefore to assess the current international efforts related to timber engineering, in both fundamental and applied research. This will be done by drawing together the material, structure and connection requirements of timber construction and relating them to Timber Architecture. While academic sessions on the first three days will focus on material (wood and wood based products), structures (typical, large and innovative) and connections (glued, steel and reinforced), the fourth day of the conference will unite these topics within sessions treating architecture.
The Conference Organizing Committee received an overwhelming response to its Call for Papers; the Committee was only able to accept half of the abstracts that were submitted. The conference will include six plenary keynote addresses, 180 oral presentations and 175 posters.
On behalf of the Committee we would like to express our sincere appreciation to all the members of the Conference Organizing Committee and to the National Delegates
On behalf of the Committee we would like to express our sincere appreciation to all the members of the Conference Organizing Committee and to the National Delegates for their work towards making this conference a success. We would like to thank Thomas Herzog, Robert Leicester, Konrad Merz and Roland Schweitzer for agreeing to deliver the plenary session lectures.
We would also like to thank the IBOIS team for helping to prepare this conference and especially Pierre-Aime Favre, Executive Administrator, as well as the conference assistants, Claudia Haasis and Nadia Christinet.
More than 500 Delegates and Participants from more than 50 countries and five continents will be participating to make this conference an extremely successful event for both Timber Engineering and Timber Architecture. We would like to thank all of them for their efforts, and we sincerely hope that this conference will provide them with a rich and rewarding experience that will enable them to establish both productive associations and friendships for the future.
Prof. Julius K. Natterer
Conference Chairman
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