Could your house take a bullet for you?

Clad it with a new type of modified wood, and it might, says Alex Lau, co-founder and executive chairman of InventWood.

The US-based company has developed Superwood - a modified wood it claims is stronger than steel.

During lab tests, a gas gun fired a bullet-like projectile at thin pieces of wood, including an early version of the company's product.

While the projectile blasted straight through the natural wood, it failed to penetrate the heavily modified version.

Mr Lau suggests that the product could have military applications, such as in battlefield shelters, but admits they "haven't tried dropping bombs on it".

In the race to decarbonise construction, materials such as concrete – associated with high greenhouse gas emissions – are coming under ever-greater scrutiny.

Wood-based construction, proponents say, can actually help in the fight against climate change by storing large amounts of carbon long-term.

But natural timber is not always strong enough for certain applications and it can degrade when exposed to moisture or wood-gobbling insects.

That's where engineered wood products come in. They promise to be significantly stronger and more resilient – reliable enough, even, to form the structural frames of skyscrapers. The construction industry is increasingly pushing wood to new limits.

"You can almost massage the wood so you're squeezing air and imperfections out," explains Mr Lau as he describes the process of treating timber with........

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