Over a span of several decades Växjö, a small city in southern Sweden, has grown a reputation as “a living research area” to test different construction materials and building solutions. Wood designed buildings have been a major part of the movement which is why the municipality of 100,000 residents has been nicknamed Timber City, Sweden, a hefty moniker in a country known as a world leader in wood construction. Fredrik Lindblad, who works at Växjö’s Linnaeus University in institutional management focusing on forestry, wood products and housing, said the city has come a long way from its environmental roots in the 1970s. He presented a seminar at Summit 2024, a WoodWorks conference recently in Toronto, highlighting the city’s shift to sustainable building practices primarily through using wood (mass timber in particular) as a building material.