TIMBERHAUS celebrated its first year with a major General Assembly and a public Stakeholder Summit from 25 to 28 November 2025 in Siena. The meeting wa organized by the Municipality of Siena, and it brought together project partners, researchers, local administrators, and community stakeholders for a series of intensive technical sessions, workshops, field visits and participatory events.
Over the first two days (25–26 November), partners convened at venues including the historic Palazzo Pubblico and Palazzo Patrizi to review progress across all project work packages. Discussions covered the design of low-impact timber buildings, development of innovative materials from under-utilised and post-consumer wood, assessment of climate benefits, and communication and exploitation strategies – all laying the groundwork for future project phases. Partners aldso had the chance to visit the laboratories of Santa Chiara Lab, an interdisciplinary innovation hub where research and experimentation span from hydroponic cultivation and product design to 3D printing and applications of virtual and augmented reality.
A key session was led by ICONS, which organized a workshop focused on exploitation – aimed at finalising the characterisation of project results to ensure their use after project completion, and validating the Key Exploitable Results (KERs). This effort seeks to pave the way for real-world uptake and replication of timber-based solutions.
On 27–28 November, the meeting opened up to citizens and local stakeholders with the first public Summit titled “Timber in Siena: Linking Heritage and Carbon Neutrality for Sustainable Futures”. Italian/English-based workshops were held at the historic complex of Santa Maria della Scala: here participants used participatory workshops and strategy games to support the co-design tasks for the pilot of Siena. The Summit, and especially the workshop titled “Climate-smart use of wood in Siena: understanding local and regional challenges and opportunities, priorities for future development” was organized by ClimateKIC, UrbaSofia, ETH Zurich and Municipality of Siena. Discussions centred on reconciling heritage preservation and carbon neutrality, exploring how wood construction and climate-smart forestry could help shape a sustainable future for the city and region.
In addition to the workshops and meetings, participants engaged in a series of field visits and guided tours: exploring the city’s heritage sites, the green corridors of the local ConVerSi urban-regeneration initiative and the timber-built Achille Sclavo primary school. These visits offered tangible examples of how sustainable wood construction can be integrated into a historic urban setting.
The General Assembly and the Summit have shown that TIMBERHAUS is not just about research, but also about building a real, participatory movement towards circular, low-carbon construction that respects culture, heritage and community. All of this, in the beautiful framework of Siena, that embodies the ambition of TIMBERHAUS to combine local identity, sustainable design and climate action into replicable, scalable solutions.