Kick off your WoodBUILD experience at the conference centre’s reception area, where our friendly team will be ready to greet you at the WoodBUILD desk. Pick up your badge, sign up for workshops, and then head into the main hall to enjoy refreshments, meet fellow attendees, and explore our vibrant exhibition space.
The buzz starts here—welcome to Day 1!

To kick things off, our fantastic MC Rachel Cook who runs Networks for Woodknowledge Wales, will take the stage with a warm welcome and a look ahead at what’s in store. Get ready for a day packed with fresh ideas, big conversations, and plenty of inspiration.

This is a moment to look at our collective and individual progress since WoodBUILD 2025. Learn about innovation projects our sponsors have been working on. Share some of your own projects and find out how, together, we’ve been advancing the formidable five: purposeful growing, added-value processing, low-carbon manufacturing, net-zero construction and fostering an enabling wood culture.  

Make your way into the coffee lounge, on the ground floor of the Conference Centre to enjoy refreshments. Network with your peers as you peruse our 20 indoor and outdoor exhibition stands in the adjacent main hall. This is where connections are made!

Hear from our visionary speakers, how they expect the future to unfold. We’ll be looking at economic, ecological, social and geopolitical forecasts and more and how these may impact our industry beyond what we already take into account in today’s business decisions and operations.

It’s time to recharge and reconnect. Make your way into the coffee lounge, on the ground floor of the Conference Centre for buffet lunch and refreshing drinks. As you refuel, take the opportunity to explore the exhibition in the main hall, and strike up a conversation—you never know where a good chat might lead.

Discover some of the contagious bottom-up projects working with communities on retrofit and newbuild projects as well as forest management and timber processing. Learn how these grassroots approaches nourish diversity and inclusion whilst addressing poverty through tangible action in forest and building construction and what funders investing into these projects are looking for. 

Join us again in the ground floor coffee lounge (in the Conference Centre) for refreshments, good conversation. Pop into the main hall to connect with peers in a space designed to inspire collaboration and innovation.

Across Europe the question of transformation in land use and society is being discussed on a regional and national level. Catalonia demonstrates an innovative and politically bold approach to fostering a forest based bioeconomy in a socio-economically challenging context. How does this relate to the situation in Wales and the UK? What inspiration can newly elected Senedd members take from this example? What are the key questions that require addressing over the next political mandate? 

Join our keynote speaker and a panel of policy makers and industry members for a dialogue around the policy questions that matter. 

After a full day of conversations around present and future opportunities and concerns, our keynote speaker will help us lift up potential and underlying patterns in our work.

Speaker: Oliver Broadbent, Constructivists

We look forward to continuing our discussions informally over dinner.

An informal gathering with drinks served in the Stilts restaurant on campus, followed by a hot buffet on campus will allow us all to keep the buzz going, listen to a few impromptu announcements and celebrate some off-programme successes as we all enjoy some locally prepared food.

Welcome back! Head through the main reception and make your way into the coffee lounge in the Conference Centre and the exhibition hall. Enjoy morning refreshments, reconnect with peers, and ease into another inspiring day at WoodBUILD.

Our brilliant MC, Rachel Cook, is back to give you a warm WoodBUILD welcome. She’ll guide us into Day 2 with a smile, a spark, and a quick look back at the highlights from Day 1—setting the tone for another day of insight, ideas, and inspiration.

What are the hands-on questions that matter most to people in the industry? This session is designed to spark down to earth conversations on a kaleidoscope of questions brought in by you. Please respond to our two questions in the registration form to fuel the conversation. Your input will provide the basis for this morning’s keynote presentation and panel debate.

Feeling inspired? Stretch your legs and drop by the coffee lounge in the Conference Centre.  With coffee brewing and conversations flowing, it’s the perfect moment to catch up with peers and dive back into our exhibition space—there’s always something new to discover.

Option 1: Circular timber in practice: closing the gaps. a working session for manufacturers, finance and insurance

Details TBC

Option 2: Woodfibre insulation – yesterday’s niche, tomorrow’s mainstream?

This session is designed for designers, specifiers and manufacturers interested in the use of natural fibre insulation. You will receive an update on the current state of the industry in relation to woodfibre insulation. You will learn about opportunities for wider adoption through the inclusion of this type of insulation in the STA Patternbook. You will gain insight into testing and potential for scaling up the use of woodfibre insulation in retrofit.

Option 3: Forest action meets community needs: woodlands as a common good

Details TBC

Option 4: How policy can lead responsible timber futures with public buildings

Public buildings are where policy ambition and procurement meet. They are also places, where society can experience the impact of material and design choices. Across Europe, committed governments are using public procurement as levers for change – in perception and practice. Join us for a fireside chat around opportunities in public procurement in the UK and learn how governments in Spain, France and elsewhere are moving building with home-grown timber from exception to mainstream.

Option 5: Resilient industries and resilient forests: prioritising future productive tree species in Wales

Join us for an interactive session exploring questions around wood properties, gradability, future markets and the productive species that will grow in Wales in the future. This workshop is part of the ongoing Welsh Government project on prioritising future productive tree species for Wales. Come prepared to play Top Trumps and be part of the conversation between foresters, wood processors and wood users. The insights we gather will shape the future.

Lunch is served—and so are the connections. Head back to the coffee lounge in the Conference Centre once again for a buffet lunch that fuels both body and mind. Whether you’re diving into conversation or taking a final stroll through the adjacent exhibition, this is another opportunity to share ideas, swap stories, and sow the seeds of collaboration.

Option 1: Making wood work for rural communities

Details TBC

Option 2: Building the market for home-grown timber in Welsh social housing – Let’s make it happen

How realistic is it to imagine new homes being manufactured in a local factory using timber from a local forest? Most local forest products are used for fencing, packaging, paper, pallets and biomass. Most new timber frame homes use imported timber. This workshop will focus on how to unlock this missed opportunity and mainstream the use of home-grown timber in social housing. Using a live example from one of Tai ar y Cyd social housing partners in South Wales we will explore how to match the supply of home-grown timber with real-time projects in development. Be part of the conversation and help shape where we go next!

Option 3: Making the grade: unlocking opportunities for a variety of timber species and reclaimed timber

Come and discover the hidden wood scientist in you! Why? If you’re using wood in any of your projects, then grading is what enables you to do so. Somebody somewhere in the supply chain has to assess the ‘quality’ and strength of the piece of timber that will be coming your way. This workshop gives you practical insight into the hidden art of timber grading and how it can unlock a myriad of possibilities for making better use of lesser known species as well as reclaimed timber. Delivered by our Timber 101 team – a consistent WoodBUILD favourite!

Option 4: Healthy schools for healthy kids and futures: rethinking materials for public buildings

School buildings present a major opportunity to advance healthier, lower-carbon and more circular approaches to construction. This session brings together researchers, architects, manufacturers, policy makers and project stakeholders to reflect on opportunities and lessons learned from sustainable school projects in Wales and beyond. Join us to explore questions around material selection, circular construction approaches, supply chain readiness, skills development, building performance and the wider role public buildings can play in supporting innovation and more sustainable construction futures.

Join us in the coffee lounge of the Conference Centre for refreshments, good conversation, and a chance to connect with peers in a space designed to inspire collaboration and innovation.

Keynote presentation – to be confirmed 

Further details to follow shortly. 

As this conference draws to a close, what are we taking with us and what are we inclined to move forward between now and summer 2027?