Woodrise 2025
Program

Alar Just is a professor at Tallinn University of Technology and a researcher at RISE Research Institutes of Sweden. He completed his dissertation on fire resistance of timber frame assemblies in 2010. 

Dr. Just has been working as a Chief Engineer at the structural design office for 15 years where lead the design of many timber buildings and bridges. From 2010 he works as a researcher at RISE Research Institutes of Sweden where his research is related to fire resistance of timber structures. He has conducted more than 250 fire tests. Dr. Just is a professor of Structural Engineering at Tallinn University of Technology. He is currently supervising 4 PhD students in the field of fire resistance of timber structures and reclaimed timber structures. Beside home university he has regular courses at Linneaus University. Dr. Just is reviewer for several scientific journals, in the scientific board of the conferences Structures in Fire, Wood Building Forum and Wood and Fire. 

Alar Just is a head of Estonian delegation in CEN TC 250 SC 5 and member of the Estonian mirror committee EVS TK13. He is a vice chair of the Project Team TC250 – SC5.T4, drafting the next generation of EN 1995-1-2. 

Andrew is a Founding Director of Waugh Thistleton Architects, a practice dedicated to delivering beautiful buildings and places that acknowledge their impact on the environment. He is a world-renowned spokesperson for low carbon architecture and innovative construction, and lobbies and lectures internationally, communicating the urgent need for change to mitigate the climate crisis. Andrew demonstrates his commitment to driving forward a green transition in the construction sector as a member of the steering committee for Architects Declare as well as a Senior Fellow for Architecture 2030. A pivotal player in the global shift towards renewable, bio-based materials, Andrew’s innovative approach to design has been acknowledged by many awards including the RIBA President’s Award for Research and a Stirling Prize nomination in 2018 and the UK Practice of the Year award for 2023. The practice is currently engaged on both research and design projects throughout Europe and North America.

Anna Ervast Öberg, operating manager at the housing developer company Folkhem, has a degree in architecture from The Royal Institute of Technology KTH in Stockholm, as a research student at the University of Tokyo and a completed master’s thesis in collaboration with Columbia in New York. 

After seven years as an architect at the Swedish architectural firm SandellSandberg and as a teacher in urban planning at the KTH School of Architecture in Stockholm, Anna has been working at Folkhem for over ten years, responsible for the company’s development and portfolio containing 1,600 housing units in eleven different timber projects.  

Folkhem decided in 2012 to exclusively develop and build in timber due to the climate benefits and has since developed the world’s largest pure portfolio of multi-housing projects in various building systems in timber in urban contexts. 

Anna has worked dedicatedly since 2014 with developing the projects, portfolio, and the position of the company. Building an expertise with the developer’s perspective within the field of large-scale housing projects in various timber structures with a vision of participating in a green shift of the building sector through timber, bioeconomy, and architecture. 

She was the head project manager of the most famous project Cederhusen with its 14 stories and 240 apartments, the first CLT-project to be built in the inner city of Stockholm, on top of three traffic tunnels and one of the biggest urban housing-projects built in CLT in the world. 

Setting the agenda for the company’s market positioning includes being a front-runner, meaning every project is given a task to contribute and manifest a push for development of the sector. This means initiating and participating in several innovative research projects, such as the Eu-financed project Woodcircles for example, multidisciplinary collaborations and a learning through the real projects and development of the portfolio. 

Anna is based in Stockholm, mother of three, and with a passion for playing cello. 

Asif Iqbal is an Associate Professor in School of Engineering at University of Northern British Columbia. He completed his PhD at University of Canterbury, New Zealand. His research
interests include seismic analysis and design, and structural control systems for seismic applications.

Presentation title:
Low-Damage Mass Timber Walls and Frame Systems for Seismic Resilience: New Zealand and Canadian Initiatives

Bob van der Zande is Urban Strategist. Advisor of Cities, Regions, Investors and Developers. Focus on building-in-wood and mass timber, social impact, inclusive area development, public-private collaboration (Triple Helix).  

He is Director Mass Timber Programme in residential development in the Metropolitan Region Amsterdam (MRA): 20% of all new homes are to be built biobased/in mass timber by 2025. Successful in accelerating the timber movement together with 140 subscribers of the Timber Covenant (2021- 2025) and 30 real estate partners.  

In March 2023 he became member of the Board of Built by Nature Foundation that stimulates the use of timber and other natural materials in the building sector worldwide with grants. He is chair of the National Houtivation Foundation that is scaling up the use of timber in the real estate industry. Also chair of the National Knowledge Center for Biobased Construction. 

Chair of Urban Land Institute (ULI) the Netherlands for 4 years, past chair of the European Urban Regeneration ULI Council and Global ULI Trustee since 2018. 

Bob van der Zande has been working in the public sector for decades at the City of Amsterdam and the MRA (30 municipalities, 2 provinces).  

Director Residential Markets for the City of Amsterdam 2009-2019, responsible for several residential programmes in the city and the region, such as speeding up midsegment rental housing, the self-built housing programme and student and youth housing.  

He graduated as urban designer at the Delft University of Technology in 1978.   

Born in Kuala Lumpur (Malaysia), February 2nd 1953 

Clara Schmitz is Head of International Expansion at GROPYUS – a German-Austrian technology-based construction company focused on building aspirational, sustainable and affordable multi-story residential buildings using highly automized, off-site timber construction methods. In this role, she is leading GROPYUS’ international growth initiatives and is thus responsible for identifying new markets, developing market entry strategies and building strategic partnerships with key stakeholders, partners, and clients, currently focusing on Northern America and Australia. After receiving her MBA from Yale School of Management, she worked as Head of Business Development at another proptech company before joining GROPYUS in 2020.   

Dr. Cristiano Loss is an Associate Professor in the Wood Science Department at the University of British Columbia (UBC), specializing in sustainable structural systems with an emphasis on high-performance hybrid wood-based structures and performance-based optimum design procedures for a resilient built environment. Dr. Loss completed his master’s structural engineering program and obtained his Ph.D. in Engineering of Civil and Mechanical Structural Systems at the University of Trento, Italy. Before joining UBC, Dr. Loss worked with the Wood Design Engineering Research Group at the University of Northern British Columbia and other research Laboratories in Europe. Dr. Loss has an outstanding knowledge of wood in structural engineering, having conducted research within several multi-disciplinary research projects supported through funding programs in Europe, Canada, and Australia. He is a voting member in several subcommittees of the ASTM-D07, a designated member in two subcommittees of the CSA-O86 Canadian Standard, and a member of many International Scientific Committees, including the World Conference on Timber Engineering. Among successful knowledge transfers from academia to industry, he has been granted several patents.

Erica Fischer, PhD, PE is an Associate Professor of Civil and Construction Engineering and the Glenn Willis Holcomb Professor in Structural Engineering at Oregon State University. Dr. Fischer’s research interests revolve around innovative approaches to improve the resilience and robustness of structural systems affected by natural and man-made hazards. Dr. Fischer performs research on a variety of different structural systems including steel, timber (CLT), composites (concrete-CLT and steel-concrete), and thin shells subjected to hazards such as earthquakes and fires. She has participated in post-earthquake reconnaissance team missions in diverse regions including Haiti, Napa, California, Italy, and Mexico City; and led post-wildfire reconnaissance after the 2018 Camp Fire, 2021 Marshall Fire, and recently after the 2025 Eaton and Palisades Fires in LA. Dr. Fischer has experience as a practicing structural engineer and holds a Professional Engineering license in the states of Washington, California, and Oregon. She is a voting member of AISC Task Committee 5 and AISC Task Committee 8.

Dr. Hiroshi Isoda received his Ph.D in Faculty of Engineering from the University of Tokyo in 1995. From 1990 to 1995, he was a Faculty and an Assistant Professor in Architecture and Civil Engineering at Shinshu University where he taught in the area of Structural Engineering. He moved to the Building Research Institute (BRI), National Institute of Japan, as a Senior Researcher in 1995, where he involved in the revision of Japanese Building Standard Law. In 2000-2001, he was also a Visiting Researcher in the Department of Structural Engineering at the University of California in San Diego, where he analyzed the seismic response of four index wood buildings within the FEMA-funded CUREE-Caltech Woodframe Project. In 2006, He was a Visiting Researcher in the Department of Civil, Structural, and Environmental Engineering at the State University of New York at Buffalo where he involved in the shaking table tests of the NEESWood Project. He moved to the Shinshu University as an Associate Professor in 2006 and was elevated to a Professor in 2011. He moved to the Kyoto University in 2013. He is now a Professor in Laboratory of Timber Science and Engineering at Research Institute for Sustainable Humanosphere of Kyoto University. 

Jean-Philippe Letarte, a professional engineer from Quebec, brings over a decade of innovation and expertise in structural hardware to his passionate commitment to the mass timber industry. As a key member of the engineering team at MTC Solutions, Jean-Philippe has significantly contributed to pioneering technical documents and design guides, lending support to more than 2,000 timber and mass timber projects across North America. Advocating for hands-on approaches, he has spearheaded the simplification of engineering solutions, exemplified by user-friendly technical literature for self-tapping wood screws and pre-engineered beam hangers tailored for the North American mass timber market. Beyond his technical achievements, Jean-Philippe is recognized for his role as a mentor, highlighting his unwavering dedication to advancing the field and nurturing the next generation of engineering talent. 

Dr. John W. van de Lindt is the Harold H. Short Endowed Chair Professor in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Colorado State University. He has conducted more than 50 research projects related to buildings and other systems related to earthquakes, hurricanes, tsunamis, tornadoes and floods. Van de Lindt led both the NEESWood and NEES-Soft project teams between 2005-2013 which consisted of two-story, four-story, and six-story shake table tests on the world’s largest shake tables including in Miki Japan and San Diego, California.  He is the past Chair of ASCE’s Technical Administrative Committee for the Structural Engineering Institute.  He is the Co-director for the National Institute of Standards and Technology-funded Center of Excellence (COE) for Risk-Based Community Resilience Planning headquartered at Colorado State University.  Professor van de Lindt led the project to introduce cross laminated timber (CLT) into U.S. building standards and codes as an approved seismic force resisting system, served as a Co-PI for NHERI Tallwood and NHERI Converging Design Projects.   He has published more than 450 technical articles and reports including more than 260 journal papers, served on a number of editorial boards, and is the Editor-in-Chief of the ASCE Journal of Structural Engineering. 

Kelsey Winter is the mother of three young girls and her and her husband are grateful to be able to raise their family on the traditional lands of the lək̓ʷəŋən Peoples, today known as the Esquimalt and Songhees Nations. She is the Manager of Wildfire Operations Research at FPInnovations, a national not-for-profit that specializes in creating solutions that accelerate the growth of the Canadian forest sector. Winter’s team utilizes operations research projects and empirical evidence to assist wildfire agency partners in increasing their positive impacts in the wildfire management ecosystem. She has a background in Natural Resources, Fire Ecology and Fire Management and before FPInnovations worked for the British Columbia Wildfire Service managing the FireSmart program. 

Dr. Laura Hasburgh is a Materials Research Engineer at the USDA Forest Products Laboratory, Madison, Wisconsin. Dr. Hasburgh earned a Master’s in Fire Protection Engineering from the University of Maryland and a PhD in Materials Science from the University of Wisconsin – Madison. In her current role, she focuses on assessment of fire performance to reduce loss from both wildland and structure fire exposures; timber construction with respect to fire growth, smoldering, and product endurance; molecular-scale changes in wood caused by pyrolysis; and obtaining material properties at high temperatures. Dr. Hasburgh also actively participates in the development of fire test standards, serving on multiple committees within ASTM E05 and is the current Chair of ASTM E05.33 on Fire Safety Engineering. 

Marie Johansson has been working as a researcher at RISE since 2014. Here research areas at RISE have mainly been timber engineering, with areas such as tall timber buildings, connections, prefabrication and material properties.  Marie was the project coordinator for the international project DynaTTB – Dynamic Response of Tall Timber Buildings under Service loads as well as several national projects regarding Tall Timber buildings. She has a PhD from Chalmers University of Technology, Sweden and has been Professor in Building Technology at Linnaeus University. 

Michael Green is an award-winning architect, speaker, and author known for using design to create meaningful, more sustainable built environments that benefit both people and planet.
A leader in wood and bio-based construction and innovation, he has completed some of the most significant timber buildings in the world, and has been recognized with over fifty international awards for design excellence, including the Royal Architectural Institute of Canada Firm of the Year , Architizer’s Revolution in Design Award in 2023, Best in North America Firm Award in both 2021 and 2022, four Governor General’s Medals, two RAIC Innovation Awards, and the American Institute of Architects Innovation Award.
Michael lectures internationally on the future of design and construction, including his TED talks, “The Natural Building Blocks of Sustainable Architecture” in 2023 and “Why We Should Build Wooden Skyscrapers” in 2012. He serves as a government policy advisor on mass timber design and is the co-author of the first and second editions of ‘The Case for Tall Wood Buildings’ and ‘Tall Wood Buildings: Design, Construction and Performance.’
An avid traveler and adventurer, Michael has explored remote regions of every continent.These journeys through nature are what inspire his work.

Michael Sørensen is the Global Market Director at Henning Larsen. Based at the international design studio’s headquarters in Copenhagen, Denmark, he oversees strategic market development and client engagement. Previously, Michael led Henning Larsen’s New York studio for five years, directing projects across North America.   

As Design Director, he leads large-scale initiatives, collaborating with multinational teams to ensure a consistent design vision through all stages of design. His leadership reflects his belief that architecture should create meaningful human connections and positively impact communities. Michael’s portfolio includes notable projects such as the Downsview Framework Plan in Toronto which reimagines the 250-acre former airfield into a human-scale, people-first community.

Known for its holistic approach, Henning Larsen creates environments where transformative ideas flourish. The studio has earned prestigious accolades, including the International Architecture Award, Architizer A+ Awards, Fast Company’s World Changing Ideas Award, and the Mies van der Rohe European Union Prize for Contemporary Architecture. 

Dr. Li was trained as a structural timber engineer. Before joining UBC Wood Science, he was an associate professor at the University of Canterbury in New Zealand. He has researched extensively on high-performance engineered wood products and connection systems, multi-storey mass timber and timber-steel hybrid structures. He has a strong interest in developing robust and innovative timber building solutions via experimental, analytical and numerical techniques.

Paul is CEO of Built by Nature, a not-for-profit organisation whose vision is a built environment in unison with nature.  Previously Paul was Managing Director, Sustainability and Social Impact, Lendlease Europe. He was the founding CEO of the UK Green Building Council. Before that, he worked for WWF-UK as Director of Campaigns, Campaign Director for WWF’s One Million Sustainable Homes campaign and co-founder of One Planet Living. Paul was a trustee and Vice Chair of the Board of Centre for London, the city’s only dedicated think tank, and a director of BeOnsite, a not-for-profit focused on bringing unemployed people from disadvantaged backgrounds into sustained employment.  

Paul was Chairman of the public/private sector Zero Carbon Hub and a member of the Zero Carbon Homes 2016 Task Force, established by the UK Government to translate the zero carbon homes policy ambition into reality. He was a member of the UK Government’s Green Construction Board and Chair of its Buildings Working Group. On an international level, he was a member of the Board of the World Green Building Council and Chair of the WorldGBC Europe Network. 

Operations Director

Philipp was born in Switzerland, training first as a carpenter and foreman and then as a Project Manager for a Zurich-based Architectural office specialising in timber buildings. Philipp then studied at Bern University of Applied Science, Architecture, Wood & Civil Engineering in Biel, qualifying as a timber Structural Engineer in 2007. He went on to work at Blumer-Lehmann AG as a Project Engineer before moving to London to work as the Design Director at Eurban. He currently directs and manages Eurban’s team of Engineers and Architects.

Pierre is professor of timber design at the University of Auckland and Chief Technical Officer at Tectonus. He served as the Head of the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering from 2011 to 2017. 

Structural engineer specializing in timber structures, Pierre’s expertise is with timber connections. 

His work on timber connections under earthquake loads led his research group to develop a resilient damper that re-centres buildings, reducing the need to demolish buildings following an earthquake event.  

He co-founded Tectonus in 2016 to commercialise the resilient damper and conducted R&D to demonstrate the damper advantages in steel, concrete and timber buildings (for new builds and retrofits). 

The resilient damper is in use in buildings in New Zealand, in Canada and under consideration for building projects in the USA and Japan. 

I’m part of the Green & Resilient Buildings team in the Sustainability division of Planning, Urban Design and Sustainability, where I’ve worked for twenty years. My work on green buildings includes creating incentives in Planning policy, reviewing applications, as well as advising staff, consultants, and applicants. Some of the topic areas I deal with are Passive House, mass timber, Net Zero energy standards, embodied carbon, and the related sections of the zoning by-law. 

Dr. Shiling Pei received his Ph.D. in Civil Engineering from Colorado State University in December 2007 and joined the faculty of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Colorado School of Mines in Fall 2013. His research focused on traditional and innovative timber systems, performance based engineering, structural dynamics, and large-scale testing. Dr. Pei received the 2012 ASCE Raymond C. Reese Research Prize for his work on a full-scale 7-story wood-steel hybrid building test at Japan’s E-defense shake table. He led the NHERI TallWood Project and completed shake table test of a full-scale 10-story mass timber building, which earned him recognition by Engineering News-Record as one of the 25 News Makers in 2023. Dr. Pei currently serves as the Chair of the ASCE Technical Committee on Wood Design, and also manages an Open Forum for timber engineering at https://timberengineering.org/

Dr. Nakashima has a background in both engineering and agriculture. Before joining BRI Dept. of Structural Engineering, he engaged as JSPS research fellowship at RISH, Kyoto University, and served as an assistant professor at Utsunomiya University. His research focuses on the development of structural design methods for joints in mass timber buildings, as well as the seismic resilience performance of wooden structures, including both traditional wooden houses and modern mass timber buildings. 

Steve Pryor is a structural engineer from earthquake-prone California in the western region of the United States.  He has been with Simpson Strong-Tie for 27 years and currently serves as their Advanced Research Manager.  Prior to joining Simpson, Steve was a practicing structural engineer in California designing residential, commercial, and industrial facilities.  Steve has participated on a number of building code committees and has authored numerous papers.  With a career dedicated to understanding the seismic performance of structures, Steve has led Simpson’s partnerships with many universities in ground-breaking research into performance-based seismic design, soft-story retrofits, post-tensioned mass timber rocking walls, and has developed new structural steel lateral force resisting systems.  Along with many others at Simpson Strong-Tie, Steve has a passion for trying to find practical solutions to difficult structural problems. 

Born in London and raised in Jamaica, Steven studied biology at Western University and architecture at the AA, graduating with honours. As a partner with ArtBuild architects, he steers the development and application of bio-adaptive design principles, seeking new ways to fuse ethics and aesthetics. The practice’s internal Lab works with biologists, academics, industrialists, and research groups to develop biomimetic concepts which can be transferred to mainstream construction practice. Steven lectures widely on subjects that bridge biology and the built environment, exploring the very nature of intelligence informing architects and the building sector at large.

For more than 6 years I have been working at the FCBA as a research engineer and research coordinator of the timber construction department. Specialised in civil engineering and structural mechanics, my doctoral thesis focused on dynamics and finite element analysis. At the FCBA I lead projects on seismic behaviour of buildings, non-destructive testing, vibrations in lightweight floors and modelling of timber structures.

Thomas Tannert joined the University of Northern British Columbia in 2016 as BC Leadership Chair in Tall and Hybrid Wood Construction. He received his Ph.D. from UBC, a Master’s degree in Wood Science and Technology from the University of Bio-Bio in Chile, and a Civil Engineering degree from the Bauhaus-University Weimar in Germany. Before going to UNBC, he worked in multi-disciplinary teams in Germany, Chile, and Switzerland and at UBC Vancouver. Dr. Tannert holds a Canada Research Chair and is member of the executive of the technical committee for CSA O86 “Engineering Design in Wood

Tomoyuki Gondo has been working as a researcher at the University of Tokyo since 2017. He got a PhD from the University of Tokyo, Japan in 2011. He has served as a member of several national and association committees related to wooden architecture and resource utilization. His research areas include 1) the history of prefabricated housing and high-rise construction, 2) the field surveys on construction industries in several regions and countries, and 3) the development of new construction methods for complex shapes including tensegrity or bending active. He got the AIJ (Architectural Institute of Japan) Book Award twice. In his educational programs in graduate school, he integrated the design and construction process: the students constructed such GFRC (Glass-Fiber Reinforced Concrete) shell mock-ups, or they deconstructed empty houses in Japanese local island and designed from the reclaimed materials. 

Valérie Lasek is a senior official at the French Ministry of Ecology, where she has worked in the fields of planning, urban development, and construction, particularly focusing on sustainable cities. Since 2021, she has been leading the Bordeaux Euratlantique Public Development Authority, which has been committed to timber construction in the new districts south of Bordeaux since 2015. As co-organizer of Woodrise in Bordeaux in 2023, the EPA is a founding member of the French association Woodrise Vallée, which brings together industry stakeholders in a single location to accelerate training, research, and the integration of wood construction methods to decarbonize urban planning and the real estate sector.

Coming soon