Glulam has long been indispensable in Europe and many other countries of the world. In Uganda, however, it is still completely unknown in timber construction. Glued laminated timber is wood that consists of at least three board layers glued in the same grain direction. This would be interesting for Uganda, because even smaller trees and thinner woods can be used to produce large stable constructions. In order to protect larger trees and to show the wood industry new possibilities, it is therefore important to make glulam more well-known and popular in the wood industry.
In order to attract the desired attention, we have built a pine construction with glued laminated beams. The first meeting with Patience Namaara (Country Manager of FVW in Uganda), Fred Kamihanda (CEO of KAVA International), Richard (head of the workshop) and Simon Bosch (wood engineer at Roth Burgdorf AG) took place in January 2019. We then began to produce the template for the curved supports of the bench, which we completed in just six days.
At the opening ceremony of our new Fairventures Worldwide office in Bugolobi, Kampala, we took the opportunity to place the bench in our garden to show the idea of glulam and the potential of light wood. Around 50 people from the timber industry, the public sector and friends and sponsors of FVW were present. Thus our celebration offered a very good platform for this and our guests were enthusiastic. We would like to take this opportunity to thank Global Woods International AG, without whom this activity would not have been possible.