{"id":591313,"date":"2026-04-07T13:36:13","date_gmt":"2026-04-07T13:36:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/591313\/"},"modified":"2026-04-07T13:36:13","modified_gmt":"2026-04-07T13:36:13","slug":"australia-is-too-dependent-on-stick-framing-to-hit-its-housing-targets","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/591313\/","title":{"rendered":"Australia Is “Too Dependent” on Stick Framing to Hit Its Housing Targets"},"content":{"rendered":"

Australia cannot stick-frame its way out of its housing crisis \u2014 and the trades required to keep trying are running out. That is according to Kurt Schrammel, Managing Director of Vida Wood Australia, who told Wood Central the nation is \u201calmost forced\u201d to embrace large-scale prefabrication or risk falling critically short of the housing volumes it has committed to deliver.<\/p>\n

Schrammel heads the Australian arm of Vida Wood, the largest sawmill group in Sweden by output, supplying framing timber into the Australian market from operations in southern and central Sweden across distribution centres in Brisbane, Melbourne and Perth: \u201cAustralia is still too much dependent on building on site, (and using) stick framing,\u201d he said, \u201cand the degree of prefabrication is still not there where it should be.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Kurt Schrammel, Managing Director of Vida Wood Australia, tells Wood Central that Australia remains too dependent on on-site stick framing, that chronic shortages of carpenters and skilled site trades are now the binding constraint on housing delivery, and that the country is being forced to go prefab. (Video Credit: Wood Central)<\/p>\n

The consequence is not just inefficiency but an arithmetic impossibility \u2014 a construction system already straining under a chronic shortage of carpenters and site trades cannot absorb the volume of new dwellings the country needs without a fundamental change in how they are assembled. As it stands<\/a>, more than 27,000 tradies exited the industry last year alone, leaving a shortfall of over 115,000 workers against the Albanese government\u2019s housing targets. \u201cAustralia is almost forced, if it ever wants to reach its one million housing level, to fully embrace prefab,\u201d Schrammel said.<\/p>\n

\"AttendeesInterested in learning more about the Wood Central tour? Visit our dedicated tour bookings website<\/a> to view the programme and itinerary. (Photo Credit: Wood Central \/ Central PR Group)<\/p>\n

Benchmarking Australia against the UK \u2014 a market where shared specifications and sizing allow Vida to serve both countries from the same production runs, and where the company supplies framing for close to every other structural timber frame house built \u2014 Schrammel rated Australian trust and frame manufacturers and prefab housing companies at least on par with their British counterparts, and in some instances slightly ahead. The gap, he argued, is not technical readiness but manufacturing scale and the pace at which the sector is prepared to industrialise its output.<\/p>\n

On where to close that gap, his answer was unambiguous: Europe or Japan. \u201cIf you really want to learn about prefabrication, mass building, economies of scale in prefabrication, then it\u2019s either Europe or Japan where you have to go,\u201d he said \u2014 and Scandinavia, where Vida\u2019s own prefabricated housing division, producing dwellings and student accommodation alongside its sawmilling operations, puts that knowledge within reach of visiting Australian delegations.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Schrammel tells Wood Central that CLT is not a universal solution \u2014 the right engineered wood product depends entirely on what you are building and how. Whilst each product fills its own niche, he notes that building an entire house from LVL studs makes little commercial sense when conventional timber framing achieves the same outcome at lower cost and with greater ease of construction. (Video Credit: Wood Central)<\/p>\n

CLT is not a universal fix for Australia\u2019s housing pipeline, and Schrammel said so directly. Prefabricated timber frame systems remain the most commercially competitive option for the single- and multi-family residential market that makes up the bulk of what Australia needs to build, with CLT better suited to urban, multi-storey applications where erection speed and lower emissions justify the premium. \u201cIt really depends on what you want to build, how you want to build it \u2014 and then you start picking the right products,\u201d he said. \u201cThere is not such a single easy answer.\u201d<\/p>\n

The comments come ahead of Wood Central\u2019s UK\u2013Sweden Study Tour confirmed for September, which will take in Vida\u2019s Swedish sawmills and prefabricated housing operations as host sites, with Andrew Dunn, CEO of the Australian Timber Development Association, Perry Forsyte, Emeritus Professor at the School of Built Environment at the University of Technology Sydney, Professor Staffan Schartner, Adjunct Professor of Timber Architecture at Linnaeus University, and Wood Central Publisher Jason Ross joining as co-guides for the delegation.<\/p>\n

\"J <\/p>\n

Jason Ross, publisher, is a 15-year professional in building and construction, connecting with more than 400 specifiers. A Gottstein Fellowship recipient, he is passionate about growing the market for wood-based information. Jason is Wood Central’s in-house emcee and is available for corporate host and MC services.<\/p>\n


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