Category Archives: Wood, Paper & Green Building

Shigeru Ban Architects (SBA), …has sought out some of the less heroic products of our age, sometimes using trash as inspiration for the next big thing in structural solutions; the firm works with humble materials, but its final creations are no less accomplished for it. Wood is one of these seemingly humdrum materials that SBA has long played with, but in the past decade or so, it has skillfully taken advantage of the material’s flexibility. SBA is quite literally taking timber structures to new heights, and is currently at work on both the tallest hybrid timber structure and the largest mass timber development in the world. With work around the world, the firm has pushed the possibilities of what glulam, cross-laminated timber, and other wood products can do—both formally and functionally—proving to skeptical local administrators that timber is a material that can meet and even exceed their building codes.

IKEA is a paradox. As the world’s largest “fast furniture” brand, the Swedish giant’s business model has had an undeniable environmental impact. On the other hand, few megacorporations have been as aggressive in pursuing sustainable practices. Last summer, IKEA made an ambitious pledge: By 2030, it would use only renewable and recyclable materials in its products. Reaching the target will require across-the-board innovations in wood, metals, plastic and, of course, fabric. To that end, in 2014, IKEA partnered with H&M and Swedish inventor Lars Stigsson to develop a sustainable wood-based fiber. Now the initiative, called TreeToTextile, has a new partner: Finnish pulping conglomerate Stora Enso. The news signals a gear shift—the project has moved out of the test phase and into production. 

INDIA – Can wood be made without tree really? This was the question being asked from almost every student who visited the stall of the Central Building Research Institute (CBRl), Roorkee, which displayed the sample of wood made using natural fiber derived from agricultural waste such as husk and straws in combination with recycled plastics during an expo of the Indian Science Congress at the LPU. …Amit Prakash of the CBRI said: “Our technology for wood without trees is a step towards saving forests. Natural wood is replaced by manufacturing rice husk plastic wood.” Companies had manufactured door/window frames using this technology. The material has wood like surface appearance, having features of replacement to natural wood, meeting requirements of the National Building Code, he said.

…In March the world’s tallest wooden skyscraper, 85 metres high, will open in Norway. …The Mjostarnet tower [is special because] all of its supporting columns are made of glulam… “This is the future of construction,” says Harald Liven, Moelven’s project manager for Mjostarnet. But is it? Many governments in the rich world want to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions from constructing and using buildings. With some wonderful exceptions, they are failing. …If zero-carbon standards were changed to include the emissions from building and demolishing structures, many of the perverse incentives in the building regulations would disappear. It would probably lead to more building with wood. Many mature forests do little to take extra carbon out of the atmosphere. Chopping some of them down, storing the carbon in wooden buildings, and planting new trees in their place could well increase forestry’s contribution towards actually removing carbon from the air. …Mjostarnet may be the world’s tallest wooden tower, “but we hope not to hold the record for long,” says Mr Liven. They do little more than demonstrate a possibility. But even that is useful. [A digital subscription to the Economist may be required to access full story]

The second little pig was unlucky. He built his house from sticks. …The fairy tale could have been written by a flack for the construction industry, which strongly favours brick, concrete and steel. However, in the real world it would help reduce pollution and slow global warming if more builders copied the wood-loving second pig. In 2015 world leaders meeting in Paris agreed to move towards zero net greenhouse-gas emissions in the second half of this century. That is a tall order, and the building industry makes it even taller. Cement-making alone produces 6% of the world’s carbon emissions. …A race is on to build the world’s tallest fully wooden skyscraper. But such edifices are still uncommon. Industry fragmentation, vicious competition for contracts and low profit margins mean that most building firms have little money to invest in greener construction methods beyond what regulation dictates. [A digital subscription to the Economist may be required to access full story]

Stockholm-based architecture practice Tham & Videgård Arkitekter has unveiled designs for a new housing typology in Gothenburg, Sweden, that will be built from cross-laminated timber. Named the “vertical village,” the project is a “solid timber” iteration of the firm’s previous development by the same name that had been designed for Stockholm in 2009. Like its predecessor, the Gothenburg “vertical village” champions a dense and family-centric development built around a series of connected garden spaces. …“The houses represent a new vertical typology that minimizes the footprint in order to leave as much land as possible for cultivation,” the architects said of the housing typology. For visual variety, the 140-square-meter row homes will be finished in different colors ranging from red, green, black and gray. The buildings will be constructed with cross-laminated timber and prefabrication construction methods to meet the highest environmental and energy standards.

Danish architecture firm Tegnestuen LOKAL recently completed TK-33, a modern and energy-efficient home that promotes building materials considered more sustainable than those typically used in Danish residential construction. To reduce the carbon footprint of the project, the architects designed the home with a timber structure rather than the more commonly used load-bearing concrete walls. Triple-glazed windows and a flexible floor plan also add to the home’s environmentally friendly cachet.  …Driven by a desire to reduce carbon emissions in Denmark, the architects focused on replacing the most emission-heavy elements of typical Danish construction with more eco-friendly alternatives. In place of brick-clad concrete — commonly used for outer walls that the firm said account for nearly 30 percent of the total emissions associated with the construction of a typical home — the architects used a wooden frame clad in a thin layer of brick shingling. 

The sustainable fibre company Spinnova has successfully completed building its new pilot factory line in Jyväskylä, Finland. The pilot is an important step on Spinnova’s journey towards large volume commercial production. …Ramping up the line will take the first quarter of 2019. The maximum capacity of the pilot line is 100-400 tons per annum. …The technology now piloted is suitable not only for the wood-based fibre production, but also to the other potential bio-based raw materials Spinnova is considering. Spinnova’s raw material commitment is to only use FSC-certified wood or waste streams, processed with 0% harmful chemicals. Spinnova is a Finnish wood fibre company that develops ecological technology for manufacturing pulp-based textile fibre. Spinnova’s patented technology is said to save water, energy and chemicals, making wood-based textile fibre significantly more ecological than cotton or the current man-made fibres.

Swan opened its 75,000 square foot housebuilding factory in Basildon last year, with plans to deliver 600 units annually for developments of up to nine storeys. The 11,000-home landlord manufactures cross-laminated timber (CLT) units at the factory and then transports them to be fully assembled on or near the development site. However, CLT is combustible and is therefore now banned for use in the external walls of buildings six storeys or higher following regulations brought forward by ministers last month as a response to the Grenfell Tower fire. A spokesperson for Swan told Inside Housing: “We are fully satisfied that CLT is an inherently safe product which responds very well under fire conditions. “Unfortunately, the blanket ban on combustible materials has had the (possibly unintended) consequence of banning a material that has been extensively tested and is used worldwide in high-rise construction.