MANY VISITORS AT LEGNO&EDILIZIA; 2009 BUT ABOVE ALL, QUALITY AND PROFESSIONAL SKILL

Professional operators from all over Italy and Europe converged on the Verona fairgrounds from February 26 to March 1 for the 6th edition of Legno&Edilizia and they provided the best response possible to the fears about the crisis that has hit traditional construction so hard. A first analysis of the data relative to visitors indicates that those from the northeastern regions accounted for 61% of the attendance, from the northwestern regions 20%, from central Italy 15% and the southern regions and islands accounted for 4%. As regards foreign visitors, operators from 25 different countries visited the fair. They came, in particular, from the Baltic Republics and all the Eastern European countries that have vast forests and are gradually developing activities connected with the construction of buildings in wood. Interest in the sector, represented here by the sole segment of products and machinery/systems for production in wood, was very great, as confirmed by the 250 exhibitors who came from Austria, Belgium, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, Poland, Portugal, the Czech Republic, Slovenia, Spain and Switzerland.
Four days for the exhibition and conferences centered on wood building construction, meant that Verona became a showcase of technologies and new ideas, and the place of reference for carpenters, bricklayers, window fitters, designers, ecologies and all the operators who revolve around the sector, with particular attention to sustainable construction and energy savings. Attendance at the conferences demonstrated clearly that there is a strong need to establish standards at the European level, that can be shared by all and that will serve to harmonize production of healthy building materials, but also to design constructions having in mind the well-being of the people who will occupy the homes, offices and factories.
Legno&Edilizia, the international biannual fair opened by the regional councilor for Industrial Production, Vendemiano Sartor, was held on an area of 20,000 sq.mt. of exhibition space, with practical demonstrations of processing techniques, woodworking systems in function and a large area devoted to coverings for roofs and walls.
Among the special initiatives: Holz Village (a space devoted to the companies in the Upper Adige area), Sistema Legno Trentino (with enterprises and consortiums of producers), entries in the contests Wood and Watt and Riabita, the first national competition for wood carpenters.
During the fair, an intensive seminar was held, entitled Case di legno: project, calculation and construction of wood houses with 4 modules, taught by Prof. Franco Laner of the IUAV (University of Venice) and attended by 300 participants from all over Italy. There was great interest also for the 1st international conference on healthful, sustainable construction, which focused on the quality of the materials for indoor well-being. Other meetings involved the initiative Casa Sofie and the consortium Sofie Veritas from the Trentino region, relations between Italy and Austria for the sale of lamellar wood products, the Tettoproject seminar, meetings of Agelegno and the Associazione of Culture and Sustainable Projects that announced the foundation of a new international association called Ecoaction. Piemmetispa, organizer of the event in Verona, presented the Vademecum of Wood Houses edited by Prof. Franco Laner and Daniele Turco, engineer, at this edition, with the Architectural Technology and Environmental Physics groups of IUAV: a new editorial project that explains, in clear and simple language, how to design buildings using a natural, living material like wood.