Facit Homes, Wikihouse, and the Plywood Frame
3rd October 2021
Plywood frames use thin sheets of plywood [0] as the material for the entire structural system. Sheets of plywood are run through a CNC router, which cuts the plywood into specially designed shapes. The shapes are then attached together using slots and tabs (helped into place with large mallets) to form a variety of structural elements – walls, box beams, portal frames, columns – which then get assembled (using more slots, tabs, clips, and wedges) to form the superstructure of the building. The tight tolerances of the machined plywood mean that everything fits snugly together, which allows simple friction connections to do a great deal of the work (though in practice most of the folks using the system are throwing in some mechanical fasteners as well).
The problem is that most building codes are written by people in the building trades and are written to provide people in the building trades with guaranteed employment.