Research through Intern­ship Activ­i­ties in the SBTCP project – A Student’s Perspective

The ”Sustain­able Build­ing Tech­nolo­gies- Commu­nity of Prac­tice” (SBTCP) project by Karelia UAS in collab­o­ra­tion with Salzburg UAS and Jade UAS has been playing an eminent role in bring­ing inter­na­tional students from cross-border coun­tries together. As a signif­i­cant part of this inter­na­tional collab­o­ra­tion, SBTCP project is hosting the intern­ship activ­i­ties of an inter­na­tional bach­e­lor student Dominik Auclair from Jade UAS, Germany, which is support­ing him develop his bach­e­lor thesis topic and research further.

The SBTCP project has three funda­men­tal pillars of research activ­i­ties: 1) Sustain­able build­ings, 2) Mate­r­ial sciences, and 3) Build­ing infor­ma­tion model­ling (see fig 01). The Sustain­abil­ity perspec­tive from Karelia UAS resulted in eight possi­ble research topics, and was discussed with Dominik for further study. After conduct­ing several liter­a­ture reviews on sustain­abil­ity, circu­lar­ity, and compet­i­tive­ness of timber construc­tion, his bach­e­lor thesis titled ‘’Modular Timber Construc­tion’’ was shaped, which focused on the flex­i­bil­ity and sustain­abil­ity aspect of modular timber construc­tion techniques.

The follow­ing write up explains how Dominik Auclair has expe­ri­enced this whole intern­ship process, espe­cially from an inter­na­tional student’s point of view study­ing in a foreign country for the first time. The write up portrays what chal­lenges he has expe­ri­enced, how working with SBTCP project has supported him, and also, which factors eased his stay in Finland.

My exchange in Joensuu, Finland

I am Dominik Auclair, 23 years old and from Germany. After my school, I did an appren­tice­ship as a carpen­ter. And after­ward, I started my civil engi­neer­ing studies in the German city of Olden­burg at the Jade Univer­sity of Applied Sciences. Now I am in the seventh semes­ter and pursu­ing my Intern­ship for my Bachelor’s thesis here in Joensuu at the Karelia Univer­sity of Applied Sciences.

I love the Nordic coun­tries, and I love wood construc­tion, so I asked Prof. Sebas­t­ian Holler­man if he knows some compa­nies here in the beau­ti­ful North. He was an exchange student here in Joensuu and he is working on a project called ’Sustain­able Build­ing Tech­nolo­gies- Commu­nity of Prac­tice (SBTCP)’ together with the Karelia Univer­sity of Applied Sciences in Finland, Salzburg Univer­sity of Applied Sciences in Austria, and my Univer­sity in Olden­burg. He suggested I come here in Joensuu to work on the Project with Timo Pakari­nen and Shammi Keya, and I decided to do so.

Leaving my comfort zone

For me, the two most impor­tant reasons to go to another country was to improve my English and to leave my comfort zone. When you go to another place where you don’t know any people, you need to be more open. This fact improves my person­al­ity extreme. In addi­tion to that, here I´m making many connec­tions with people from all over the world, and for me it is one of the most impor­tant things because it can make your life much easier. Even my English skill is improv­ing with time. I was really nervous before, because my English was quite bad. But I noticed in the first few days that there is no problem. More diffi­cult is the research in English. The arti­cles are written with many tech­ni­cal terms and I need more time to under­stand it.

Between my deci­sion and my start was only a short term and the Vaca­tion time in Finland made it more diffi­cult, but the work from both Inter­na­tional Offices was excel­lent and I had a good and easy start here in Joensuu. And this has been an inter­est­ing expe­ri­ence because I´m the first person from my univer­sity here at the Karelia UAS without help from other people and had no one to ask for help.

After my arrival here I got every time help from the tutors and we had orien­ta­tion days for some helpful things we need to know about the Univer­sity, organ­i­sa­tions for studies, events and the city. After that We had some events with other exchange students orga­nized by the tutors. Now we are well connected and doing a lot of things together and having a nice time.

Focus on timber construction

The SBTCP project is a research project, and I got a list of differ­ent impor­tant topics of timber construc­tions. I chose the topic for compet­i­tive­ness of timber construc­tions compared to tradi­tional construc­tions like concrete, steel and bricks. My second topic is the circu­lar­ity of timber construc­tions. Here the goal is to increase the life-time of the construc­tion and the how it is possi­ble to reuse the build­ing mate­ri­als. In this topic I´m research­ing differ­ent types of construc­tions like Design for Adapt­abil­ity or Design for Decon­struc­tion and Reuse.

After my research I need to write an article about my results. I get help when­ever I ask for it, and we are improv­ing my arti­cles together for a better result. We have weekly meet­ings with Timo Pakari­nen, Shammi Keya and me. There we discuss about our work and make some plans how it goes on. All in one, I have my own work and can work inde­pen­dently. This has improved my self-reliance, and I have learned a lot.

I have thank­fully received the oppor­tu­nity to visit some build­ings, construc­tion sites and compa­nies here. We visited for example, a modern company for wooden windows which was really inter­est­ing because there is a huge differ­ent to windows in Germany. It is really inter­est­ing for me to see bigger construc­tion site in another country. I have some expe­ri­ence on construc­tion sites but only for small build­ings. I will also visit with some colleges two work­shops here in Joensuu at the Karelia Univer­sity about Build­ing Infor­ma­tion Model­ling and about a Life­cy­cle analy­sis. And we will go to a confer­ence about the timber construc­tion Indus­try in Helsinki. I am quite happy about it, that they pay atten­tion on my inter­est and realise the excursions.

After my Intern­ship I got the oppor­tu­nity to extend my stay here in Joensuu to start my Bach­e­lor thesis about Modular Timber Construc­tion from here at the Karelia UAS. The support here from my super­vi­sors are really nice and I´m happy that they give me this opportunity.

The working condi­tions are really goods and here is a nice college climate. It makes much fun here to speak with all of them. Some­times we do things out of the work­time. For example, on my first weekend I was with two colleges in the Koli National Park. The land­scape there is beau­ti­ful and we had a lot of fun.

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Authors:

Dominik Auclair, student, Jade Univer­sity of Applied Sciences/Karelia UAS

Shammi Keya, Project Researcher, Karelia UAS

Timo Pakari­nen, Lecturer, Karelia UAS