SPEC Toolbox, the multi-supplier design platform used by thousands of structural engineers to design mass timber buildings, today released version 3.0, the biggest release in the platform’s history. It is a complete rebuild of how engineers design with mass timber and the products that connect it, so they can design mass timber in one place, and every calculation behind it is still deterministic.
Mass timber is scaling globally and the product ecosystem around it, connectors, fasteners, fire, acoustics and engineered wood, is scaling with it. The engineering workflow has not kept pace. Supplier data is scattered, many brands ships their own tools, and designing in timber is often harder work than designing the same building in concrete or steel.
Built for the engineer to keep coming back. SPEC Toolbox is obsessed with user experience. More than once the team has put a huge effort into a calculator only to find engineers could not make their way to it, and the effort was wasted. 3.0 puts navigation at the centre. Inputs sit top left, a live preview bottom left and outputs on the right, on one screen. Every output follows the same calculation logic, referenced to the clause, never a black box. If a check is failing the engineer clicks it and lands on it, with the inputs sitting beside it, so the fix is one more click. Ten calculators are on the new standard at launch, including CLT floors, CLT walls, columns, shear walls, screws and panel to panel connections, with the rest of the app following over the coming months. CLT panel to panel connections are now one calculator, so half lap, spline and butt joint are compared in a second. Shear walls run side by side, with connection type, dimensions and bracket suppliers compared next to each other in Europe and multi-storey walls configurable in the United States. CLT Floor moves between new, emerging and existing codes with a click, and the fire view returns the full fire design calculation straight away.
Every supplier in the category. Side by side. Live. Since the beginning, SPEC Toolbox has integrated the supply chain’s product data to the specific ETA, ICC or evaluation report of each supplier: the tested values for each product, not generic ones. Minimum edge distances and spacings, withdrawal parameters, head pull-through, yield moment, and the timber densities and thicknesses the product has actually been tested in. Until now, comparing the best option meant clicking around to get there. The new Database View shows every certified product in the category live, ranked by utilisation against the engineer’s actual design. Around 20,000 screws are on the platform. An engineer who needs a partially threaded screw in the 100 to 130 mm range filters by head type, length and thread, and every screw that fits is ranked by utilisation on that check. Change a load and the order changes. Pick one and it writes straight into the calculation. The best design and the most cost effective one are usually not the same screw, and now both are visible in the one place. In a market where general AI is abundant, structured supply chain data is the scarce part.
Frontier AI, inside the engineer’s workflow, never producing a number. Frontier AI models can now reason over an engineering problem, and 3.0 brings that capability into mass timber engineering for the first time, as part of a better experience rather than a separate tool. SPEC Intelligence is live in 3.0, starting with screw connections. Asked to fix a failing check, it identifies the governing constraint and clause, proposes the smallest change that resolves it, and the calculation engine re-runs to prove the result. In one example, a connection failing on geometry at 140 per cent, with edge spacing below the EN 1995-1-1 clause 8.7.2 minimum, resolves by moving from eight screws at 35 mm to six at 60 mm: geometry returns to 87 per cent, axial to 55 per cent, and cost falls by 9 per cent. The AI advises, the verified engine computes, and the engineer remains the signatory. No number an engineer sees is produced by the model.
“We’ve rebuilt the user experience for the entire app end to end. We’re hoping that with a better experience, more engineers will keep coming back to timber,” said Adam Jones, founder and CEO of SPEC Toolbox. “Making it easy is our mission, and that’s what 3.0 is about. The core workflows redesigned, every supplier in the category side by side, and an intelligence layer that helps engineers decide faster while our verified calculation engines do what they have always done. This is the biggest step we have taken since founding the company.”
SPEC Toolbox is used by 7,500+ registered engineers across four regions: Australia and New Zealand, Europe and the UK, the United States and Canada. More than a thousand North American engineers have designed on the platform. It carries certified product data from 40+ supplier partners.
SPEC Toolbox 3.0 is live from Wednesday 14 October 2026. Every calculator is free for engineers in every category and every region, as it has always been, and the platform is funded by its supplier partners. Pro adds design automation, the full Database View comparison and more SPEC Intelligence credits. SPEC Intelligence credits are included for every engineer, and existing projects and calculations carry over.
Design mass timber in one place.
