Kim Baber

Kim is a researcher in the Advance Timber Hub, currently involved in Four research projects in the Hub:

The ARC Research Hub to Advance Timber for Australia’s Future Built Environment (ARC Advance Timber Hub) is an Australian Research Council (ARC) Industrial Transformation Research Hub.

The ARC Advance Timber Hub aims to develop the resources, enablers, and drivers to advance sustainable timber, as a natural resource, to be the material of choice, leading towards a net zero future for Australia’s built environment. It intends to support the transformation of Australia’s timber and construction sectors by:

Kim is Project Lead and Chief investigator on:

-Project 7.1 Adaptive building forms for inventory-constrained utilisation of low value fibre

Kim is Chief investigator on:

-Project 7.2 - Establishing viable product and market solutions for hardwood plantation thinnings and small logs

-Project 7.4 - An open-data framework for forest-to-building value chain mapping

and a Partner investigator on:

Project 6.6 - Adaptive product design, fabrication, and optimisation from variable fibre feedstocks

Kim is also working on the design of sustainable shade structures, and is a Chief investigator on a project with the Nohmura Foundation for Membrane Structure Technology entitled: Sustainable modular membrane shade structures from under-utilised timber materials

Within the School of Architecture, Design and Planning, Kim was Project Lead and Chief investigator on the recently completed the research pavilion as part of Purpose Built- Architecture for a Better Tomorrow, Entitled: Forest to Fibre to Building

https://www.slq.qld.gov.au/blog/forest-fibre-building

This research project investigates a unique hardwood forest in Hervey Bay, irrigated by recycled treated effluent. The Project maps the lifecycle of the forest and the timber resources it offers, from the germination of saplings, through to the growth of the fibre in the tree, to the design and assembly of timber structures. During the process, it identifies where design and building practices can be smarter, more sensitive and produce less waste.

This project, as part of a broader study, aims to gain a better understanding of where the materials come from in our built environment. For many of the physical things in our environment, it is often very difficult to gain a tangible understanding, of not only where its original material has come from, but the wider impact that the extraction of the raw resource, and its processing and manufacturing, might have on the environment during its production. For buildings, this is certainly the case, and given the significant quantity of resources that go into making buildings, knowing more about the origin of materials and the impact of their manufacture is of critical importance to us. As designers of buildings and cities, we have an opportunity and a responsibility to influence key decisions about materials, where they come from, and the impact they have on both the immediate and wider environment.