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Schilliger Holz supplied the CLT panels for the floors of the beach volleyball courts and the media center at the 2024 Summer Olympics in Paris. A large proportion of these boards will be given a second life in the new Schilliger fiber insulation board plant in Küssnacht am Rigi.

The pictures of the spectacular scene went around the world: against the backdrop of the Eiffel Tower, the international beach volleyball elite battled it out for Olympic honors. What is less well known is what was under the sand of the beach volleyball courts: CLT large-format panels from Schilliger Bois SAS, the French subsidiary of Schilliger Holz. 3000 m2 of panels were used for the sports facility and a further 16000 m2 as a floor carpet pad for the media center. Condition: The boards had to be bought back and stored after the Olympics. “Our aim was to reuse these boards and thus get serious about the circular economy in its most sustainable form,” says Ernest Schilliger, Managing Director of Schilliger Holz.
More than 8000m2 of these Olympic panels can now be found as ceiling elements in the new Schilliger fiber insulation board plant in Küssnacht am Rigi. The entire structural design was adapted to the size of these panels. “Despite the additional costs for dismantling, storage and replanning, it was worth reusing the CLT panels,” says Ernest Schilliger. This project shows that the circular economy is possible – if you want it to be.

21th february the construction works for our new fibre insulation board factory in Küssnacht am Rigi startet officially.We expect the plant to go into operation in the summer of 2025.

We will produce fibre insulation boards exclusively from Swiss wood, which is unique in the country. Together with the associated wood-fired heating plant, this will enable us to cascade the use of wood throughout the company. We can also offer insulation based entirely on natural building materials that bind CO2. This is an important addition to Schilliger’s wide range of wood products and comprehensive customer service.

ETH Zurich is currently working on the future of timber construction. Specifically, the idea is for robots to take over the assembly of large-format panels into complex structures. They relieve the woodworker of the heavy lifting and exact positioning of the individual panel parts and make complex substructures superfluous. Only the application of the butt joint bonding according to the new TS3 technology is left to the timber construction specialist.
In this way, around 300 complexly bonded Schilliger large-format panels were assembled into five oversized green shells. These form the 22.5-metre-high architectural sculpture “Semiramis”, which has been standing on the site of the newly emerging Tech Cluster in Zug since June this year. Semiramis was designed by Gramazio Kohler Reearch, ETH Zurich, in collaboration with Müller Illien Landschaftsarchitekten GmbH, Timbatec Holzbauingenieure Schweiz AG and Erne AG Holzbau as general contractors.
Semiramis is a collaborative work that is innovative in many respects. Not only the assembly, but also the planning was computer-controlled. This made it possible to optimise factors such as sun protection, rain protection and plantable area. In the process, the software ensured that the wooden panels remained flat, their size did not exceed the specified maximum value and the structural load-bearing capacity was given. The sophisticated multi-robot assembly process with the four robots cooperating with the help of artificial intelligence is unprecedented of its kind. All this makes Semiramis a lighthouse project in architectural research.

Photo 1: Multi-robot assembly process at ETH Zurich.
Photo 2: Erecting the sculpture
Photo 3: Shell of a shell
Photo 4: Planting of a bowl

Translated with www.DeepL.com/Translator (free version)

The construction of buildings in timber construction is booming not only in Switzerland, but also in France and all over the world. In particular, multi-storey timber constructions are developping very positively. The demand for CLT large-format panels has increased accordingly. In order to satisfy this demand in France and  in the international export markets with domestic wood, Schilliger Holz AG has started in Volgelsheim with the production of CLT.

An edge gluing of all layers guarantees the well-known high quality standard already offered by the Swiss plant. In this way the CLT panels  are designed to meet high structural and esthetical requirements. The installation will be carried out in an existing hall in the plant on approx. 5000m2. The annual capacity in two-shift operation is designed für approximately 50 000m3 CLT.