Wood. Wellness and safety
Resistant but flexible, great as heat insulator, durable, ecological, sustainable, recyclable and, last but not least, aesthetically pleasant. Many are the advantages that are bringing design professionals to use wood in construction, promoting it as the brick of the future.
The many hearth-quakes, the centrality of ecological themes and the psychophysical benefits connected to the material, all brought to a growing desire of making public and private places more natural. A choice based on reliable scientific basis.
According to Australian web-site News.com.au, the Harvard University physicist Eva Selhub, co-author of “Your brain on Nature” states that “nature stimulates the brain with reward, reducing stress as well as the cortisol levels, heart rate and blood pressure, improving, as a consequence, the immune response.”
More than this. According to a study carried on by scientists of British Columbia University, we are witnessing the phenomenon of “healthy homes” – people involved in the study preferred rooms containing wood elements, since these habitats inspire emotions connected to warmth, relax, comfort, nature and welcome. Moreover, the research Wood2New carries on by University of Aalto in Finland, with the cooperation of Norsk Treteknisk Institutt, demonstrated that wood increases the feeling of comfort inside hospitals and nursing homes.
According to psychologists, green offices make employees happier and grateful to their employers, who show attention and care for them, thus increasing productivity of 15%. This is what comes out from a research published by the Journal of Experimental Psychology. The physiological benefits of wood induce also important effects on business, with a consequent increase of happiness in workers, low turnover, reduction of disorders caused by stress.
In order to make sustainable architecture something more than a passing trend, we must develop a real culture of wood, by adopting certifications for a correct use of the material, according to current laws.
ITLAS is committed both to the conservation of wood heritage and to promote a vision of the world with sustainability as its core.
According to Gaetano Castro of CREA-FL, Board for Research on Woodlands and Wood, “the promotion of brands of environmental sustainability, such as FSC and PEFC, has the aim of granting users that the wood employed has been cut legally. It is not a crime to use wood, on the contrary, it is fundamental because only a correct remuneration of its employment can make forest management and specialized plants convenient – which, without this, risk to be neglected and end in decay.
Each tree that is used leaves space to new trees. While wood products retain CO2, the plants in the forests grow anew and actively remove carbon dioxide from the air. Wood, used both as raw and building material, has a double positive effect on the balance of CO2, because the dioxide remains inside the product during its whole life cycle.
In 2007 Itlas got PEFC™ certification (Programme for Endorsement of Forest Certification) and achieved an important role in sustainable management of forests all over the world. Through responsible supply, the demand for sustainable certified material is generated – thus creating a financial incentive to maintain the forest as it is. With the certification of PEFCtm sustainable management, woodlands are treated according to strict environmental, social and economic standards.
In 2010 Itlas achieved the FSC® certification (Forest Stewardship Council); it is a forest certification system acknowledged all over the world – the correct forest management and the traceability of by-products are its goals. The logo FSCr grants that the product has been made with raw materials coming from woodlands that are managed according to the two main standards: forest management and chain of custody.
