Growing up amongst pine forests in a small village in the vast Russian province of Siberia, Andrey Skripachev was destined to work with wood. From a young age, his architect father would bring him along to construction projects and encourage his son to delve into his collection of architecture books.
Home to the world’s largest coniferous forests, since ancient times the people of southern and central Siberia have built their houses and other structures from the region’s strong, durable and aromatic wood. Andrey built his first structure at the age of ten: an enclosure for a Siberian snow rabbit.
“My father taught me how to appreciate each type of local tree and identify their unique functions and properties, especially those for building homes,” he says. Now, with 35 years’ experience in project development, Andrey has remained loyal to working with wood, as it is “natural, recyclable, and regenerative”.
However, his true passion lies in Innovation — a core value of Elementis, along with Nature, Community, and Wellness — which is why his company builds structures from glued laminated timber, known as glulam for short.
Considered one of the most significant innovations in wood construction, glulam is an engineered wood product made by bonding thin layers of timber with glue that is eco-friendly, durable, and moisture and pest-resistant.
Compared to many other building materials such as cement and steel, gluelam’s manufacturing process consumes less energy and produces fewer greenhouse gas emissions. Elementis is partnering with Indonesia’s first end-to-end wood consultant, Woodlam Indonesia, to procure glulam made from Indonesian redwood harvested using responsible forestry practices.
In the humid tropical and subtropical climates of Indonesia, Chile, and northeastern Australia where Elementis is building its communities, structures made from renewable natural materials that are robust, versatile, and resistant to adverse location conditions such as fire or seismic activity are key to sustainability.
After all, the people of these regions and many other parts of the world have been building their homes with natural materials for thousands of years — Elementis’ goal is to combine these materials with state-of-the-art, climate-adaptive technologies to create holistic living environments that are as healthy for guests as they are for the planet. As well as glulam, Elementis utilizes insulated glass and a world first, zero carbon climate control system.
