Letter: What is new about this form of old plywood?

From David Pengilley, Henley-on-Thames, UK

Your article about the potential of wood makes much of building with cross-laminated timber or CLT (16 March, p 33). Plywood has been around for many years – Samuel Bentham applied for patents in 1797. It has been used in furniture, buildings, cars, aircraft, spoons and much else.

The nominal distinction is that plywood is glued from cross-laminated sheets of wood peeled from a log, while CLT is assembled from sawn sheets. But Bentham's plywood was sawn.

The editor writes:

• No one, that we can find, has built an entire medium-rise apartment block or a skyscraper from plywood as now defined.