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The Wood Innovation Group
TWIG creates opportunities for connections across BC's wood value system—from forest to finished product. Through events, workshops, and community gatherings, we create space for learning, exchange, and collaboration among the people inspired by the possibilities of BC Wood.
This newsletter is for those who see potential in BC’s forest resources and want to help shape what comes next—through creativity, design, hands-on work, or new ways of thinking. It’s about blending tradition with innovation and contributing to a more resilient, locally rooted future.
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Your voice matters. If you have events, projects, or ideas to share, reach out to us at info@twigbca.ca
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Wood-First-Wednesday
March 4th, 6:00 - 8:00
Steamworks Mount Pleasant, 2275 Main St, Vancouver,
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A monthly, agenda-free gathering for people working in and around wood to build relationships, exchange knowledge, and share experience.
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Wood-First-Wednesday
March 4th, 6:00 - 8:00
Howe Sound Brewing
37801 Cleveland Ave, Squamish
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A casual monthly meetup for anyone interested in wood. Connecting professionals and community members to share ideas, ask questions, and build relationships. More Info+
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Log Jam 2 - Exploring Light, Material, and Form
March 14th, 2:00 - 6:00
MakerLabs
780 E Cordova St, Vancouver
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Join us for a wood-focused lighting hackathon exploring how light interacts with material, form, and space. Collaborate, prototype, and experiment with wood and digital tools
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More info for these events will be expanded on below, and the up-to-date TWIG events can be found online at twigbc.ca/events/
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Design Learning in Action
This month, our newsletter focuses on industrial design as both a process and a practice for innovation in BC. It’s rooted in problem-solving, material understanding, and the creation of high-value, impactful products. We also have an event this month with MakerLabs, where you can flex your creative muscles and put ideas into action.
The Wood Design program is a stream of courses within Emily Carr’s Industrial Design department, open to 2nd- and 3rd-year students. Since the strategic hiring of Christian Blyt in 2000, the program has thrived and become one of the most popular offerings. This move coincided with a period of provincial education initiatives and funding aimed at helping transition BC’s economy toward secondary wood manufacturing. Before joining Emily Carr, Blyt earned his Master of Arts in Interior Architecture and Furniture Design from Aalto University, named after the renowned Finnish architect and designer Alvar Aalto—a pioneer in wood design. At the end of the academic year, Christian travels to China to teach wood design as a visiting professor at Guangdong University of Technology and Tongji University. Christian's work as an educator is essential and one-of-a-kind in BC. His hands-on teaching, personal experience, and design perspectives have helped shape the trajectories of many students over the last 25 years, who have gone on to make an impact in their workplaces and personal ventures.
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Over the past eight years, TWIG has supported 3rd-year classes by facilitating industry connections, participating in critiques, and providing presentations to enrich student learning. Each spring semester, Christian develops a project brief rooted in a specific BC-based material and focused on a particular application—ranging from furniture to modular playgrounds. The program has received in-kind support from industry partners, including Kalesnikoff, UnBuilders/Heritage Lumber, Scotty Wood, Urbanjacks, and numerous others. Drawing on his Danish heritage and Finnish education, Christian brings a strong Scandinavian perspective to wood design education, paired with a BC Wood focus that showcases the material’s qualities and possibilities. He instills in students a belief that more can be done with local materials and that an industrial design approach can produce high-value wood products that are functional, beautiful, and impactful.
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This past week, we joined the 3rd-year class for the first critique of the semester. The key partner for this semester is The Power of Play - an organization building sustainable and innovative playgrounds around the world for at-risk children. This semester, the focus is on how design can support children who have experienced trauma, examining how play and thoughtfully designed environments contribute to healing, connection, and growth. Over the 14-week program, students work in teams to research, prototype, and build modular playground systems. The emphasis is on hands-on teamwork and creative experimentation with upcycled wood, plastic, and found materials. Each team aims to develop adaptable components that can be assembled into playground systems produced in BC and shipped worldwide. This first critique highlighted the students' immense commitment to the project. The presentation table was full of cardboard models and sketches, supported by storytelling that summarized each group's approach to designing for play. The next step in the process will be selecting specific features to work on and developing them into full-scale mockups and prototypes to test functionality, materiality, and connections.
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Other partners and supporters on the project include Cloverdale Paint, Ocean Legacy, Rampa, Imu Chan and SML Studio
We look forward to sharing more progress as the semester unfolds, with a public invitation to attend the final presentation at the end of the semester.
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With forest-felt regards,
Patrick Christie and The TWIG team
info@twigbc.ca
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LogJam 2
A Hackathon Exploring Light, Material, and Form
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March 14
2:00 - 6:00
MakerLabs - 780 E Cordova St, Vancouver
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Building on the success of our first Log Jam in November, we’re bringing it back with a more focused theme, while keeping the same open space to explore.
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Join us at MakerLabs for a hands-on hackathon focused on prototyping original lighting projects. This event challenges participants to explore how light interacts with materials, form, and space. Participants will work in teams to prototype functional or conceptual lighting pieces using wood, sheet goods, and other maker-friendly materials. Working in collaboration with MakerLabs’ members and staff, teams will use tools available in our woodshop, including the CNC Router and Laser Cutter.
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This event is ideal for designers, engineers, makers, and industry partners who want to collaborate and learn from each other, while building something tangible. Whether you’re experimenting with joinery-driven lamp structures, CNC-milled diffusers, or laser-cut patterns that shape and scatter light, this is an opportunity to push both design and fabrication skills and deepen your knowledge about wood.
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No prior lighting design experience required—just an interest in making, problem-solving, and working with light.
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We encourage you (if you have them) to bring personal wood materials, components, or any elements you’d like to incorporate into your prototype. Bonus points if your wood is locally collected or BC-origin. We’ll also have materials on-site for prototyping, including wood bits and LED parts.
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The UBC Centre for Advanced Wood Processing (CAWP) has two professional development courses as part of the Management Skills Training Program open for registration. These online courses are designed specifically for the wood manufacturing sector, and require approximately 35-45 hours of study over a six-week or eight-week period.
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This industry-focused management training from the UBC Wood Manufacturing Council (WMC) is designed to help wood manufacturing companies strengthen quality, performance, and operational consistency. The course equips participants with practical tools to manage and control quality across production processes, reduce defects and rework, and support continuous improvement on the shop floor.
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Ideal for supervisors, quality managers, production managers, and emerging leaders, this training emphasizes real-world application and actionable strategies that can be implemented immediately within manufacturing operations.
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March 30 to May 25 - Online
$495
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The Production Planning course provides practical, industry-focused tools to improve production planning, scheduling, and operational efficiency. Designed for manufacturing professionals, the course helps participants reduce bottlenecks, improve workflow, and increase on-time delivery by aligning demand, capacity, and resources. Ideal for production managers, supervisors, and emerging leaders looking to strengthen manufacturing performance and predictability.
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Both courses are industry-focused, instructor-led, and grounded in real manufacturing examples, making them ideal for supervisors, managers, and production professionals looking to drive measurable improvements.
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For more information on the courses and other offerings in this curriculum, please follow the link or contact Jason Chui @ jason.chiu@ubc.ca
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Are you looking to hire someone? Do you have a new position opening up at your company? Let us know, and we can make a posting here to share it with our readers.
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Growing Connections Across our Chapters
TWIG is always looking for new ways to bring people together through regional events, project tours, workshops, and collaborations that highlight and support wood innovation in BC. If you would like to host or co-host with TWIG in Vancouver, Victoria, or Squamish, please let us know, and we can create an event together.
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Got an idea? Need some Testing?
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Do you have a concept, product, or prototype that you want to realize? TWIG can work with you to make this happen with financial support through The Wood First Program. Carried out through the Center for Advanced Wood Processing (CAWP) and its team of technical staff, we are able to provide an array of support on various wood-based projects.
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