COVER STORY
Reconnecting nature
with urban Africa
When you think about wood materials suitable for the African climate,
Nordic soft wood is likely not the first material that comes to mind.
By Lunawood | Photos by Lunawood
A
s showcased at the Wood Conference 2019 in Cape
Town, this well received brand is supplied countrywide
through the Universal Plywoods’ branches, which are
located in Johannesburg, Cape Town, Durban and
Bloemfontein, with ample stock levels at all times to service
clients’ needs.
THE STORY OF LUNAWOOD
Since dealing with the exposure of the scorching sun and
dramatic temperature changes throughout the continent, it’s
simply too much for most wood material to handle, not to
mention the few ecological options.
A little more than 30 years ago, Olavi Kärkkäinen, a
passionate Finnish inventor and the founder of Lunawood,
came up with a brilliant idea on how to develop a more
ecological option for tropical hardwoods, using heat and
steam. Studies on the possible benefits of thermal
modification of wood began as early as the 1930s and 1940s
in Europe and the US, but the manufacturing process never
reached an industrial scale before the 1990s.
Today, Lunawood produces over 150t/m 3 of Thermowood
for various architectural projects around the world and for
industry using the very same method, bringing exceptional
Nordic nature to urban environments.
REMARKABLE POWER OF HEAT AND STEAM
On paper, the thermal modification process seems simple,
but taking a closer look reveals that what you save in lack of
complexity, you must invest when choosing the raw material.
Only healthy knotted top-logs are good enough for the
thermal modification process when producing Lunawood
Thermo pine.
The quality chain starts in the well-managed Nordic forests.
Thermal modification is achieved by using steam and high
temperatures between 190 to 221°C. The real trick to the
process is in the cooling and reconditioning phase.
At the end of the process the moisture content of the
timber is about 7% and the chemical and physical properties
have been permanently improved. After the modification, the
colour of Thermowood is modified. The higher the
temperature during the modification process, the darker the
colour will be.
From sub-Saharan Africa to the subarctic tundra of
Northern Scandinavia, Thermowood is proven to take on any
climate with LunaThermo D, having a decay resistance of
16 APRIL / MAY 2019 //
Thermowood solar shades with spruce glue-laminated beams.
The Future Africa University Campus in Pretoria.
www.timberiq.co.za