Professional training & coordination meeting in Italy

19.-24. May 2025

Rothoblaas Srl in Cortaccia & University of Trento, Italy

The week began with a visit to CLT producer XLAM Dolomiti in Trentino and some timber structures in the area. Thank you to Albino Angeli for hosting the TimberEDU team for a tour of the cross-laminated timber manufacturing facility and highlighting the innovative production alongside the design, supply and construction of timber building projects.

The 2nd day continued with technical visits. At first some buildings with external timber structures in Trento which was followed by a guided tour and site visit of a mass timber construction site for a 3 story school, where a range of design decisions and technical solutions using mass timber and engineered wood products were demonstrated and discussed. Sincere thanks again to Rothoblaas for organizing the visit and Alpenos for hosting the technical tour.

On the 3rd day, the TimberEDU team commenced the Theory in Practice course at Rothoblaas, providing a unique opportunity to gain broad knowledge on the theory and practice of timber buildings and hybrid structures. The course consisted of 32 hours of applied theory, with each practical assembly demonstration accompanied by a theoretical explanation useful for understanding the design and construction phases of CLT, glulam (mass timber) and hybrid structures. 

At the end of the course, Rothoblaas also provided a tour of their impressive warehouse – the first fully self-supporting automatic warehouse built entirely of timber (read more here). 

The professional training concluded with a technical tour of the Materials and Structures Testing Laboratory and an experimental demonstration by the partners at University of Trento, led by Professor Ivan Giongo. The TimberEDU team learned about the range of testing carried out at the laboratory supporting research and innovation in timber engineering and construction. This was a invaluable tour and demonstrated the scale of test capabilities at UNITN.  

Additionally to the long professional training week, the TimberEDU team held the project's coordination meeting in the University of Trento on the 24th of May to discuss project progress and the next steps in developing teaching materials for higher level courses on timber engineering, design and construction. 

Overall, it was a thoroughly insightful and positive experience for the TimberEDU project team, through engagement with mass timber professionals throughout the week, extending the TimberEDU network, and strengthening the existing collaborative activities while expanding knowledge on real life case study buildings and site visits in Trentino, Italy.