I love birch laminated plywoods and know of no potential toxicity problems. Even the cheaper quality birch laminate from Home Depot et. al. has been great to work with. I like the straightness of the material and the smooth finish on both sides.



And it's the two sided nature of the material that leads me to the only comment I have on your design.



Why not build a series of frames and then route a channel into them and float a pice of this birch laminate in the frames? This will be even lighter than your design and give you birch on both the interior and exterior. The frames could be aspen, birch, or poplar. I think any of those combinations would look great.



To keep the edges sealed it won't be a true floating panel but I've never had a problem with this. Stain and seal the interior of the panels and then use a bead of silicone between the floating panel and the frame. On the exterior skip the silicone.



With the natural flexibility of the silicone you'll still have someting of a floating effect and save a lot of weight.



Not a criticism of your design by any means. Rather just suggesting the way I would do it (and have done it for that matter).

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