Music from the trees and Mapuche enterprises are just two of the offerings available during Wood Week
The 17th edition of the event will take place this week where CMPC will exhibit its most innovative projects including Fibra Local, a space dedicated to promoting artisanal projects and traditional trades, Niuform and its technological innovations in wood, and lastly, the Armonía del Árbol [Harmony of the Tree] initiative.
After two years of being held online, 2022 Wood Week will be held in person once again. Visitors can observe the various wood innovations in architecture, design, engineering, construction and entrepreneurship in the Bicentennial Park in the Vitacura neighborhood of Santiago, Chile from Wednesday, October 19 through Sunday, October 23. CMPC will be one of the event exhibitors.
The company will showcase three of its newest initiatives in innovation, technology, and entrepreneurship. First there is Fibra Local, a space dedicated to sharing, making visible and promoting artisanal work and traditional trades; innovations in wood technology for construction and Niuform design, a CMPC subsidiary; and Armonía del Árbol, a tool that invites you to listen to the sounds of the forest using photocapture technology.
More specifically, Fibra Local is a space in Temuco that displays the work of 45 different entrepreneurs. Its goal is to ensure that small producers, farmers and organized artisans have direct access to the market by creating marketing channels with fair, transparent and equitable conditions, where the work of producers and the development of their communities are recognized with dignity.
Two Mapuche entrepreneurs will be showing their work as part of its participation in Wood Week. Marcia Aqueveque from the Nacimiento district in the Biobío region will bring her agro-processed food venture Sabores Nativos de Marcia. She offers a wide range of seasonal fruits preserves, as well as famous pickled digüeñes and changles, edible mushrooms endemic to southern Chile.
“My business is related to native mushrooms that are found only in the south, so my products are not as well known in Santiago. That means participating in the Wood Week is a great opportunity for me to bring my native forest products to a larger market,” said Marcia Aqueveque.
Luz Chávez, also from the Nacimiento district, will also be part of the stand with her venture Sabor Silvestre, which is known for its medicinal herbs, jams, preserves and chili pastes that she currently sells at Fibra Local in Temuco.
Luz is confident that participating in Wood Week is a unique opportunity to publicize her products. “I am very grateful for the opportunity they have given us to be able to show what we do, make ourselves more well known and, above all, to get a chance to bring our quality products to the public. They are practically 100% natural, and I collect them myself in the field,” she explains.
Cutting-edge technology
The technology in wood will be demonstrated by Niuform, a CMPC subsidiary dedicated to this building material. Currently the company is working on standards for constructing stadiums, buildings and other domestic projects using CLT (Cross-Laminated Timber) technology. This is a kind of cross-laminated wood that is manufactured industrially in the form of large light-weight boards. These wooden panels currently play a fundamental role, for example, in Austrian, German, Italian and Swedish architecture, countries that already have constructions up to 18 stories high.
This type of wood not only provides high structural strength and durability and can replace other materials like steel or concrete, it has a low carbon footprint as well as low thermal conductivity. Therefore, it is a very energy efficient material. Niuform projections suggest the production of CLT will reach 7,000 m3 in 2022, which is equivalent to 11,200 tons of captured CO2. Furthermore, during the next few years up to 32,000 m3 may be placed on the market through standardized dwellings, personalized dwellings, high-rise constructions and other corporate projects.
Lastly, CMPC will also bring “Armonía del Árbol” to the event, a project that invites you to listen to the sounds of the forest captured through the use of photosensor technology wherein the veins of various tree trunks are sonically reproduced through unique melodies.
