Building with Scottish Stone.

Building with Scottish Stone aims to encourage more use of stone sourced from Scotland’s working quarries and to provide a better understanding of those mineralogical properties which give each stone its distinctive quality. The nation’s architectural history is synonymous with the use of natural stone, and the principles of construction developed over generations in response to Scotland’s particular climatic conditions still find relevance today in the design and detailing of new buildings. Equally, an understanding of the ways in which stone is extracted and processed is as fundamental to its contemporary use as having up-to-date knowledge of the continuously changing legislation that affects its specification and procurement. Building with Scottish Stone is a stimulating introduction to these and many other factors to be considered when using this richly-varied and timeless resource in the design of new buildings.

Strength grading of sawn timber in Europe: an explanation for engineers and researchers.

This paper is a concise explanation of the normative background to strength grading in Europe, addressing important aspects that are commonly misunderstood by structural engineers and timber researchers. It also highlights changes that are being made to the standards to: incorporate requirements of the construction products regulations; add improvements to the system to accommodate the latest knowledge and technology; and widen the application of the standards. Where designs need to be optimised, there is an opportunity to use the system more intelligently, in combination with the latest technology, to better fit design values to the true properties of the timber resource. This can bring a design enhancement equivalent to effort improving other aspects of the structure, such as connectors and reinforcement. Parallel to this, researchers working on other aspects of structural improvement need to understand what grades really mean in respect of the properties of the timber, in order to correctly analyse the results of testing. It is also useful to know how techniques used in grading can assist with material properties characterisation for research. The amount of destructive testing involved in establishing machine grading settings and visual grading assignments presents a barrier to greater use of local timber, and diversification of commercial species, so it is important that any researcher assessing the properties of such species should consider, from the outset, doing the research in a way that can contribute to a grading dataset at a later date. This paper provides an overview of what is required for this.