Slated to open later this year, the $1.45 billion, 39-storey ‘plyscraper’ will eventually contain more than 30,000 cubic metres of timber — shipped by European giants Stora Enso and Wiehag — across 21 storeys of the tower, with seven four-storey’ timber habitats’ sandwiched between steel-and-concrete mega floor plates above a seven-storey concrete podium.

And the glass panels going up are anything but conventional.

Spanish BIPV manufacturer Onyx Solar — working through Australian building products supplier Metz — is installing 1,794 crystalline silicon solar louvres across the tower’s active facade as part of a bespoke 247 kWp system. Speaking to PV Magazine Australia earlier this month, Onyx Solar revealed that each unit carries 28 mono-crystalline cells in a 4+4 mm glass configuration and produces 138 Wp at peak output. “The louvres also form a self-shading system that cuts direct solar heat gain internally,” Onya Solar said, turning the tower’s skin into a “vertical power source.”

Designed by BVN and New York-based SHoP, each ‘habitat’ comprises four floors of timbered space stacked inside a steel exoskeleton, eliminating the need for internal columns. “The timber floors are connected to the concrete floors via drag straps,” said Tim Allen, timber structural lead for TTW, who spoke at Timber Construct — Australia’s only timber construction conference — in late 2024. “Why build a 39-storey building partly out of timber?” Allen said. “Because it comes down to using the right timber for the right application.”

Whilst in October last year, Peter Morley, the Dexus project director overseeing the build, said the team had “broken the back on the most technical, structural phase of the project,” with the hybrid timber approach allowing the developers “to bring the building up quicker and get the façade on quicker than a more traditional build.”

“That’s because we’re jumping up five levels every time, and while we’re going up, we’re coming back and infilling with the timber within each of those five-storey zones,” Morley said. Atlassian Central is co-owned by Dexus and Atlassian, with Built and Japanese construction giant Obayashi appointed as builders, confirming the building remains “on schedule” for a 2026 opening, with the tech giant expected to take over five of the seven habitats in late 2028 following a full fit-out.

At street level, crews are also well advanced on a new pedestrian connection from Railway Colonnade Drive to the Devonshire Street Tunnel entrance — the heritage passage running beneath Central Station between Lee Street and Devonshire Street — which will, for the first time, allow pedestrians to access the tunnel directly from the colonnade as part of Central’s broader Third Square redevelopment.

That is according to the latest ABARES Agricultural Commodities Report, published yesterday, which revealed that the gross value of forestry (GVP) production is expected to reach $2.23 billion in 2026-27 — a 3 per cent nominal increase or a 1 per cent real increase. And over the medium term, the GVP is projected to drop back $2.1 billion, with no material growth expected until at least 2030-31.

By the numbers, total gross value production in forests has dropped by 36 per cent over the past eight years — from about $3.4 billion in 2017-18 — with softwood relatively steady at about $1.5 billion, hardwood plantations flatlining at $0.5 billion and native forest continuing what is now a 20-year decline.

According to Diana Hallam, CEO of the Australian Forest Products Association, whilst the topline figures point to the vital role of sustainable forestry in producing essential products, the report also identified serious challenges and headwinds for the sector.

“Some of these challenges and risks include high manufacturing and energy costs, greater use of structural steel in residential and mid-rise construction, as well as a growing amount of imported timber products of varying quality flooding the Australian marketplace, including from China,” she said.

Hallam said the new estimates also reaffirmed the importance of aligning the government’s policy with Australia’s Timber Fibre Strategy, which outlines opportunities for the industry to make a greater contribution to national goals in carbon, innovation, and housing construction.

Softwood up, hardwood down, native at historic lows

The value of softwood plantation production is forecast to increase slightly in 2026-27, driven by short-term movements in detached housing demand. But ABARES warns that a gradual shift toward higher-density dwellings is expected to temper timber demand over the medium term, whilst projected increases in softwood log availability will ease unit prices.

Hardwood plantation production, however, is heading the other way.

And that’s because ongoing shifts in global paper markets are placing downward pressure on woodchip demand, whilst Vietnam’s growing share of global trade — combined with projected exchange rate changes — is continuing to erode Australia’s competitiveness overseas. ABARES expects Australian hardwood woodchip exports to settle at similar volumes but lower unit prices, with Australia holding a smaller, more specialised role in the market.

And then there is native forestry, where production has now fallen to historically low levels following 20 years of contraction driven by the transfer of multiple-use public native forests to nature conservation reserves and increased harvest restrictions.

A $570 million downward revision

ABARES has slashed its forestry forecast by more than $570 million — a 21 per cent revision from its December report — with exports the major driver of the writedown, down more than $619 million amid weaker production and prices.

It comes days after this masthead reported on a new white paper from the Rozetta Institute arguing that Australia needs a national roadmap to boost forest productivity and encourage new capital into the market.

On Friday, Wood Central spoke to the white paper’s lead author, Steve Walker, Principal of Terrafolia Advisory, and co-author Dr Lyndall Bull, who revealed that Australian plantations produce just 15 to 18 cubic metres per hectare per year against international benchmarks of 30 to 50.

And on Monday, Walker went further, telling Wood Central the sector’s decades-long focus on cost discipline had come at the expense of genuine value creation. “Lifting productivity on the land already planted is the fastest and most scalable opportunity,” Walker said. “International benchmarks in Brazil, India, Vietnam and China demonstrate that 30 to 50 cubic metres per hectare per year is achievable using proven technologies already available.”

“If we can do this, we can ultimately strengthen our capacity to produce more competitive engineered wood products like LVL and other EWPs,” he said, adding that the downstream benefits could add tens of millions of dollars to regional communities.

• For more information, including the ABARES full March 2026 Agricultural Commodities Report, visit the Australian Bureau of Agricultural and Resource Economics and Sciences.

Starting from later today — March 2, 2026, the date the notice was published in the Federal Register — US Customs and Border Protection will begin suspending liquidation and collecting cash deposits at the applicable rates after Commerce found that hardwood and decorative plywood from China was sold in the United States at less than fair value between October 2024 and March 2025.

The duties land on top of the 81.34% preliminary countervailing duties Commerce announced in January, according to the Coalition for Fair Trade in Hardwood Plywood, meaning Chinese plywood now faces combined preliminary duties of around 267%.

“This decision by the Department of Commerce is another critical step in levelling the playing field for American hardwood and decorative plywood manufacturers,” according to Timothy C. Brightbill, lead counsel to the Coalition and co-chair of Wiley’s International Trade Practice. “The domestic industry has been harmed for decades by dumped and subsidised hardwood and decorative plywood.”

Commerce also made a preliminary finding of critical circumstances for the China-wide entity, which means duties will be collected retroactively on affected unliquidated entries made on or after December 2, 2025, 90 days before publication of the notice.

Wood Central understands that the China-wide entity includes Linyi Evergreen Wood Co., Ltd. and Xuzhou Shelter Import and Export Co., Ltd., among other non-responsive producers and exporters. Commerce said it relied on adverse inferences after the selected respondents failed to respond to its antidumping questionnaire — a move that effectively guaranteed the highest possible duty rate.

But if Chinese plywood has all but vanished from the US market, the question is: where is it all coming from now?

Vietnam and Indonesia step in

Last year, Wood Central reported extensively that China had been using “friendly actor” countries — particularly Vietnam, Indonesia, and Malaysia — to circumvent federal antidumping laws and funnel huge volumes of plywood into the US supply chain. That pattern is now embedded in the data.

As it stands, the United States imported about 3.23 million cubic metres of hardwood plywood in 2025 — up 20% year-on-year — with Vietnam supplying up to 30% of the total share, or 980,000 cubic metres (up 33%), and Indonesia shipping 891,000 cubic metres (up 40%), or 28%. Together, the two countries now account for nearly 60% of all hardwood plywood entering the US — a market China once dominated.

And whilst Chinese trade has declined, Malaysia and Thailand posted the fastest growth among the top suppliers, with volumes rising 65% to 133,000 cubic metres and 70% to 108,000 cubic metres, respectively. Cambodia delivered 171,000 cubic metres (up 22%), Finland surged 186% to 84,000 cubic metres, and Italy rose 112% to 66,000 cubic metres. Canada slipped 17% to 183,000 cubic metres, Spain fell sharply — down 64% to 96,000 cubic metres — and Russia shipped 178,000 cubic metres, up 3%.

By species, birch plywood totalled 1.71 million cubic metres, followed by non-tropical hardwood plywood at 1.17 million cubic metres and tropical plywood at 332,000 cubic metres. Over the period 2019–2025, annual import volume ranged from 2.71 million cubic metres in 2024 to a peak of 5.30 million cubic metres in 2021 during the COVID-era construction boom, with the average import price moving from US$439 per cubic metre in 2020 to US$743 last year.

Now, Vietnam and Indonesia are also in the firing line

And that’s exactly where the next battle is being fought. Commerce didn’t just go after China — it set preliminary dumping margins of 19.98% to 84.94% on Indonesian imports and a punishing 196.14% on Vietnamese imports, a rate even higher than China’s. Those duties add to the countervailing duties announced in January, which ranged from 2.40% to 128.66% for Indonesia and 4.37% to 26.75% for Vietnam.

The Coalition for Fair Trade in Hardwood Plywood — whose members include Columbia Forest Products, Commonwealth Plywood, Manthei Wood Products, States Industries, and Timber Products — filed its petition in May 2025, alleging dumping margins as high as 474% for China. The US International Trade Commission sided with the domestic industry in July last year, finding a reasonable indication that imports from all three countries were materially injuring US producers.

Commerce plans to issue its final determination for China by May 10, 2026, after which the ITC will decide whether the US industry was materially injured. Final determinations for Indonesia and Vietnam are expected by mid-July 2026. If both Commerce and the ITC reach affirmative final determinations, antidumping and countervailing duty orders will be issued for a minimum of five years.

With China’s volumes already at rock bottom, the real question now is what happens to the nearly 1.9 million cubic metres flowing in from Vietnam and Indonesia — the two countries that stepped in to fill the gap and are now squarely in Commerce’s crosshairs.

• To learn more about the flood of plywood from China, Indonesia, and Vietnam entering the US supply chain, click here for Wood Central’s special feature.

That is, according to new ABS data analysed by IndustryEdge, which revealed that Australia’s imports of prefabricated and modular buildings have lifted to a record $326.4 million for the year to November 2025, a staggering 51.1% uptake on the last 12 months with modular steel ($75.8 million, up 246.8%) and prefabricated steel and other non-wood products ($227.3 million, up 28.9%) making up more than 92% of imports.

The data comes amid growing public and political interest in prefabricated and modular construction as a potential lever for addressing Australia’s housing supply shortfall. Yesterday, Wood Central reported that a major Australian developer is now partnering with a major Chinese construction firm to bring prefab expertise to address Sydney’s housing crisis, whilst the AustChina Institute is looking to establish a trade corridor for prefab to help close the gap.

But how much of these building materials are going into housing?

The ABS data paints a more nuanced picture of what is actually arriving at ports. The figures do not distinguish between industrial and commercial buildings and dwellings, making it difficult to determine how much of the record growth is being driven by residential demand. The formal product descriptors are published on the Border Force website under the 9406 Prefabricated Buildings classifications, with longer versions contained in the monthly ABS data series.

A closer look at the largest import category — 9406.90.00.04, covering steel and other non-wood prefabricated buildings — tells the story.

At $227.3 million, it accounts for nearly 70% of the total, and it is made up almost entirely of commercial and industrial products. The category contains no information on the value of dwelling imports. What it does list is cold rooms, spray booths, operating theatres, carports, greenhouses, interpreter booths, pod offices, observatory domes, vaults, laundries, showers, kitchens, bathrooms, and workshops — a long way from the housing conversation that has dominated the prefab narrative in recent months.

Wooden prefab buildings make up just 7.1% of all imports by value

Inevitably, most interest in the timber sector will centre on imports of prefabricated wooden buildings. The value here lifted $5.5 million, or 31.0%, to $23.3 million (FOB) over the year to November 2025. It’s a strong growth rate off a modest base — wooden prefab buildings still account for just 7.1% of total prefabricated building imports by value. Imports are spread across the states, reasonably consistent with population size.

On the supply side, mainland China accounted for 66.1% of total prefabricated building imports, or $215.9 million (FOB), for the year to November 2025. The picture shifts when specifically isolating the wooden prefab. China supplied 43.0% of imported wooden prefabricated buildings by value, with Estonia contributing 20.7% and Latvia 9.5% — a reflection of the Baltic states’ established expertise in timber construction and their growing footprint in the Australian market.

That Baltic connection is also worth watching. European timber producers have been actively diversifying their export markets since EU sanctions on Russian and Belarusian timber disrupted established supply chains from 2022. As Wood Central has reported, the reshaping of global timber trade flows has opened new corridors — and Australia’s wooden prefab import profile increasingly appears to reflect that shift.

There is no question that political and commercial interest in prefab housing is growing. But the import data suggests the reality has not yet caught up with the ambition. The bulk of Australia’s record $326.4 million in prefab imports is going into commercial and industrial applications, and for the timber sector, wooden prefab remains a small but growing corner of the market at $23.3 million a year.

The gap between where the conversation is and where the numbers are remains significant.

The review, announced by the International Trade Administration as part of a broader initiation notice covering multiple trade orders, names Hunchun Xingjia Wooden Flooring Inc. and Zhejiang Longsen Lumbering Co., Ltd. as companies subject to examination.

Under the agency’s process, respondent selection may be limited to a subset of firms, determined either from U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) import data or from quantity‑and‑value questionnaires issued to exporters. The CBP data or questionnaire responses will be placed on the record within 5 days of the notice’s publication, and the Commerce Department aims to select respondents within 35 days. Interested parties will have seven days to comment once the data are posted, followed by a five‑day window for rebuttal submissions.

The Department also noted that reviews may be rescinded where there are no suspended entries for a company or where entries were not made under the firm’s specific case number. Producers or exporters listed in the initiation notice may notify Commerce within 30 days if they had no exports, sales, or entries during the period of review. In addition, parties that requested a review may withdraw their request within 90 days of publication.

Capacity utilisation is widely viewed as a key measure of how intensively manufacturers are using their production lines, and the latest figures suggest a broad‑based slowdown. In addition to the drop in wood manufacturing, Statistics Canada also reported that “furniture and other related product manufacturers” saw utilisation fall by more than 4.9 per cent over the same period, sliding from 79.1 per cent in November to 74.2 per cent in December.

The downturn comes as Wood Central reported last month that Canada’s lumber industry is being pushed to rethink long‑standing production practices — including the potential abandonment of the imperial system in favour of the metric system.

For decades, the U.S. has absorbed the overwhelming majority of Canada’s softwood lumber. But with duties rising and political tensions escalating, Taylor said the industry’s dependence on the American market is no longer sustainable. “This over‑reliance on the U.S. lumber market could not have come at a worse time,” according to Russ Taylor, a global expert in wood trade, who pointed to a surge in trade restrictions since Donald Trump took office.

As a result, he said, sawmills are now being forced to consider retooling for markets that use the metric system rather than North America’s imperial dimensions. And whilst many mills can technically cut both ways, the broader supply chain is not configured for metric‑driven production. “North American construction sizes and grades do not fit many, if not most, end‑use applications in offshore markets,” he said, adding that logs would also need to be cut to metric lengths to meet European and Middle Eastern specifications.

• To learn why Canadian lumber producers are now eying Japan, China and South Korea to grow their export trade, click here for Wood Central’s special feature.

“This change allows us to focus our resources on priorities that best support our customers and our future direction,” said James Davenport, Managing Director at Metsä Wood UK, who stressed that the company remains committed to the UK market. “We remain focused on delivering high‑quality products and services to our wider customer base and on building strong, sustainable partnerships aligned with our long‑term strategy.”

As it stands, the Boston facility manufactures a broad range of timber and panel products, including softwood, MDF mouldings, door linings, sheet materials and fire‑rated solutions. In addition to the Boston plant, Metsä Wood also operates a plant at King’s Lynn — home to Finnjoist I‑beam production and pressure‑treatment services for the merchant and DIY markets — which is not believed to be affected by the latest restructure.

Davenport said the company’s “immediate priority is our people, and we are fully committed to supporting colleagues through this change while continuing to operate responsibly within the Boston community.”

Metsä Wood’s wider product portfolio includes Kerto® LVL, birch and spruce plywood, and further‑processed sawn timber. The company converts Northern wood into high‑quality, material‑efficient products that store carbon throughout their life cycles. Last year, its global sales totalled EUR 0.5 billion, and it employed around 1,600 people. Its parent company, Metsäliitto Cooperative, is owned by approximately 90,000 Finnish forest owners.

Wood Central understands the changes would affect the entire composite‑wood supply chain — from panel producers and furniture makers to RV manufacturers, wholesalers, retailers, testing labs, and professional service firms involved in certification and compliance. The proposal also covers the laboratories and certification bodies that test and verify composite wood products, and the EPA seeks to align several scope and definition sections with updated industry standards.

The rulemaking, published in the US Federal Register yesterday, would revise the voluntary consensus standards incorporated by reference in 40 CFR part 770 under TSCA Title VI and introduce a new quality‑control test method.

Public comments are open until March 13, 2026.

EPA is proposing to update the referenced editions of several standards used for product specifications and formaldehyde testing, including ANSI A190.1‑2022 for structural glulam, ASTM D5582‑22 for desiccator testing, ASTM D6007‑22 for small‑scale chamber testing, ASTM E1333‑22 for large‑chamber testing, BS EN ISO 12460‑3:2023 and ISO 12460‑3:2023(E) for gas‑analysis methods, and NIST PS 1‑22 for structural plywood.

The agency also plans to incorporate ISO 12460‑2:2024(en) as an additional small‑scale chamber method for quality‑control testing under 40 CFR 770.20(b)(1). EPA says the method would expand manufacturers’ analytical options, including the use of laser absorption spectroscopy. California’s Airborne Toxic Control Measure recently adopted the same standard, a development EPA cites in its justification.

The move brings EPA’s testing methods closer to those used in other major jurisdictions, including the European Union, Japan, Australia, and New Zealand, all of which rely on the updated ISO 12460 series standards. However, the broader TSCA Title VI framework remains unique to the United States, with no equivalent national certification or import‑control regime elsewhere.

So far, more than $240 million has been spent on building the campus, with Vice-Chancellor and President Professor Helen Bartlett cutting the ribbon on three new buildings in April 2024, bringing the total to 16,000 square metres of teachable space on Queensland’s fastest-growing university campus.

“Seeing the campus highlights how timber construction is already delivering high-performance, working buildings at scale,” according to Dr Sam Van Holsbeeck, who is organising the Field Trip – Building with Timber Construction, Performance and Design Life, which involves a tour of USC’s National Centre for Timber Durability and Design Life and a trip to iTreat’s timber treatment plant.

Last year, Wood Central tracked the progress of the massive project, which used more than 2,000 pre-finished interior AC-iHoop and Ariaply throughout the buildings. At the time, Scott Matthews, the Joint CEO of Austal Plywoods, revealed that plywood was “cost-effective and delivered ready to install.”

Built by Badge Construction and designed by KIRK Studio – at the forefront of Australia’s push to embrace mass timber design—and Cottee Parker, the three buildings each use a prefabricated mass timber superstructure, combining HESS Timber’s glulam and Xlam’s cross-laminated timber.

According to Richard Kirk, principal of KIRK Studio, using both prefabrication and mass timber “has proven to sequester carbon using renewable timber feedstock to significantly reduce construction time, reduce waste, and support safer and quieter construction sites.”

Kirk is Queensland’s pre-eminent expert in mass timber design and has been responsible for the design of almost all mass timber buildings in Queensland. “The exposed timber structure, generous windows and large light-filled atriums produce an entirely new open typology for UniSC — fit for a young university unconstrained by traditional ways,” KIRK Studio said, adding that “the design showcases the University as an active, growing campus and produces a sense of gravity – drawing in students, staff and community members alike.”

As one of the country’s leaders in timber research, USC was invited to join the University of Tasmania and the University of Melbourne in establishing an Australian Forest and Wood Innovation Centre focused on indigenous and agroforestry opportunities in Northern Australia.

So far, more than 4,700 students are studying at UniSC Moreton Bay, and Professor Bartlett said the campus is exceeding expectations. “There was enormous demand for a university campus at Moreton Bay before UniSC arrived, and we continue to see many non‑school leavers enrolling as well as the traditional school leaver cohort from local secondary schools,” she said.

Popular programs at the campus include Nursing Science, Primary Education, Social Work, Biomedical Science and the university’s Tertiary Preparation Pathway. Mayor Peter Flannery said the campus is reshaping opportunities for local residents. “Over 40 per cent of students at the Moreton Bay campus are the first in their families to study, and 70 per cent are Moreton Bay residents. We know this demand will just grow,” he said. “Co‑locating start‑ups, entrepreneurs and innovators alongside students and researchers is a way for businesses to connect with their future workforce and drive additional opportunities for collaboration.”

Full Program for the Forestry Australia field trip

• 9.15 am – Meet at UniSC Moreton Bay Campus
• 9.30 am-11.00 am – Introduction and guided tour of the UniSC Moreton Bay Campus, showcasing timber buildings, mass timber and prefabricated construction, and sustainability outcomes.
• 11.00 am -12.00 pm – Presentation by the National Centre for Timber Durability and Design Life on timber durability and exposure trials, including display samples and discussion.
• 12.00 pm-12.45 pm – Lunch
• 12.45 pm-1.00 pm – Travel to iTreat Timber
• 1.00 pm-2.30 pm – Visit to iTreat Timber, including a guided tour of the facilities and an overview of timber treatment and preservation processes.

Opening its doors to much fanfare this week, the new headquarters is organised as a continuous circular loop, a form BIG says creates a flexible internal layout that allows teams to adapt workspaces to meet Dymak’s changing demands. Inside, the building is lined with wood, clay and cork, whilst recycled bricks extend across the ground floor and into the surrounding paths and courtyard.

The building’s most striking feature, however, is its radial cross‑laminated timber (CLT) roofing system. Forty‑four CLT frames, arranged in a starburst pattern, form a grid‑like envelope that BIG says honours “Denmark’s half‑timbered architectural tradition” while also demonstrating the strength and versatility of mass timber. The radial frames act as the primary load‑bearing system, distributing forces evenly and giving the building its distinctive circular geometry.

Whilst above the timber structure sits a roof fully fitted with 880 bolted‑on photovoltaic panels, tilted southward to maximise solar. The roof also doubles as an acoustic buffer, shielding the courtyard’s “green heart” from background noise.

It comes after Wood Central reported that BIG is advancing plans to design what may be the world’s most beautiful airport in the Himalayas. One of the big winners at the World Architecture Festival in Miami last year, the Gelephu International Airport is slated to rise near Bhutan’s border with India, in one of the most seismically active regions on the planet. Unlike conventional airports built from concrete and steel, its vast structure will rely on mass timber, with glulam beams and columns forming a giant quake‑proof diagrid.