M.Sc. Florencia Franizini explored the perceptions of civil servants on Wooden Multistory Construction in six Finnish municipalities

In her recently published M.Sc. thesis in Forest Economics and Marketing, Florencia Franzini identified drivers to implement WMC projects among the municipal civil servants, as well as perceived barriers to implementing WMC projects.

In the qualitative study conducted under the -project, M.Sc. Florencia Franzini interviewed eleven civil servants working on city planning and development with the aim of identifying their attitudes towards the prospect of including Wooden Multistory Construction (WMC) projects in city planning, and the perceptions on WMC. The civil servants’ interpretation of the opinions of other stakeholders towards WMC were also explored. The aim was to set a precedent for current-day beliefs about WMC from the perspective of this authoritative group.

Support for WMC projects among the civil servants was due to benefits incurred by the positive qualities of the engineered wood products, permitting flexible construction technologies that directly enhance citizen lifestyles, while supporting local and national economies.  Limited support for WMC projects is seen largely a result of issues triggering high cost of WMC erection. These issues include a slow-to-develop industry with limited access to information and poor government support.

Read more about Florencia's work and its findings in the following blog  or in the thesis, .