Category Archives: Wood, Paper & Green Building

Work has finished on Toyo Ito & Associates’ “Gaia” project for the Nanyang Business School in Singapore. The zero-energy building, which is billed as Asia’s largest mass timber building, takes the form of two six-storey curving rectangles that are joined at multiple points. It consists mainly of sustainably sourced cross-laminated timber and glued laminated timber, or glulam, stiffened by a concrete core. …The interior is mainly exposed natural wood left exposed, with large windows and glazed skylights. According to NTU, Gaia’s energy-efficient design means that it will produce around 2,500 fewer tonnes of carbon a year compared with a standard building of its type and size.

TOKYO — A team from Kyoto University and Japanese logging company Sumitomo Forestry confirmed that wood is highly durable in orbit after a 10-month experiment on the International Space Station, paving the way for plans to launch a satellite made from wood next year. The discovery, announced by the university last week, could lead to satellites with simpler designs that are less prone to failure. A satellite made from magnolia wood will be launched next year to test viability, Kyoto University said. In March 2022, the partnership commissioned the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency to test three types of wood used for furniture and other products at the International Space Station’s Kibo experiment module. The wood was placed outside the station for about 10 months to investigate whether its quality deteriorated due to temperature changes and cosmic radiation. Japanese astronaut Koichi Wakata assisted in the experiment.

Shawn Lawlor

Of all the projects that I’ve had the good fortune to be a part of, the Yuriage Public Market post-tsunami reconstruction project in Natori City, Miyagi Prefecture is perhaps the most memorable. This past Golden Week marked the 10th anniversary of the completion of the Yuriage Public Market, a signature project under the Canada Tohoku Reconstruction Project humanitarian relief effort. This seaside community suffered tremendous damage and loss of life in the Great Eastern Japan Earthquake in 2011. The once-vibrant public market hub was entirely destroyed by the subsequent tsunami. Following this disaster, Canada Wood reached out to the town of Natori to see if we could assist them with rebuilding. …With the funding support of the Government of Canada, British Columbia, and Alberta, as well as Canada’s forest products industry, and thanks to the generous support of local builder Selco Homes Co., Ltd., Canada Wood built the Canada-Tohoku Friendship Pavilion

The Circlewood consortium, a collective of architects, engineers, builders and researchers, has designed a modular building concept that will act as the basis for up to 30 schools in Amsterdam. The three-storey plug-and play system, called the HoutKern Bouwmethode, consists of standardised wooden columns and cross-laminated floors connected by recycled steel joints. Components are digitally controlled to decrease assembly times and are built on site with the help of an electric crane. …The base’s load-bearing walls enclose areas that can be used as classrooms, auditoriums and gardens. The walls themselves are made from carbon-absorbing materials and can be used to support indoor climbing and vertical farming.

Of the nearly 400 million tonnes of plastic waste produced annually around the world, most ends up in landfills. Only 9% is recycled, with some individual countries recycling far less than that. This massive amount of plastic waste represents a gold mine for the construction industry. A 2022 report by PwC, says the global building materials sector contributed about 10% of all greenhouse gas emissions in 2019. They say increasing the use of recycled plastic in building materials could have a large environmental benefit. “Recycled plastics can support enhanced recycling and reuse of existing materials… and be a substitute for high-emissions materials such as brick or steel.” The report says acceptance of plastics as a building material has taken time, largely due to a number of misconceptions that include toxicity in the event of fire. …Europe is a world leader in its use of recycled plastics, says PwC.

The winding and impressive Lookout Tower was designed and constructed to mark the nature reserve of Budapest and Naplás Lake. It was designed by Robert Gutowski Architects and serves as a sculptural beacon for hikers. The imposing timber structure features unique geometry and has a simple yet complex form to it. It is an open-worked sculptural mass with a sophisticated, yet playful appeal to it. It artfully arises from the ground, looking like a natural extension of the natural environment, and gently slithers and twists up to the sky, functioning as a tall and massive tower.

If wood is strong enough for buildings and furniture, why not use it for bicycles too? That’s pretty much the thought process that led Masateru Yasuda to design the Moccle, a bicycle that relies on the flexible yet sturdy properties of bent plywood sheets. Traditional Japanese buildings have taken advantage of wood’s flexibility and vibration-absorption properties to build structures that have survived earthquakes, Yasuda points out. “I wondered if I could make a bicycle that takes advantage of the characteristics of this wood,” he adds.

Cormorant Seaplanes has entered the competition to reinvent amphibious aircraft for the 21st century. Its planned seven-passenger model will feature hybrid-electric propulsion, but more unusually may be largely built from wood, which the Dutch company describes as “nature’s original, renewable, composite material.” Cormorant started refining the preliminary design with the University of Glasgow and German aerospace engineering company Leichtwerk. …Managing director Chris Rijff started to consider using wood with a view to making a more environmentally sustainable aircraft. Discussions are underway with a Dutch producer of sustainable, harvested, high-quality, aviation-grade Sitka spruce from its natural habitat on Canada’s Pacific coast. Working with engineers from Robert Gordon University in Aberdeen, Scotland, Cormorant is looking into the potential to improve tensile strength by layering wood and carbon fiber. It also has a partnership with Hoffmann Propeller in Germany, which has expertise in wooden propeller design and manufacturing.

Experts in carbon emissions associated with buildings contend the Government’s target to build about 33,000 new homes every year until 2030 will compromise Ireland’s ambitious emissions reduction targets unless low-carbon approaches to building can be embraced across the building sector. Building more timber-framed homes using Irish timber seems like an obvious place to start yet current building regulations in Ireland prevent the use of timber frames in buildings more than 10 metres (three storeys) high. Forestry Industries Ireland (FII) and other groups are currently lobbying for change to this height limit for timber-framed buildings. This would require amendments to Part B of the building regulations, which focus on the fire safety measures in building design. …Currently in Ireland, large scale housing developers such as Cairn Homes and Glenveagh Homes are using timber frames in more and more of their housing developments but smaller building contractors remain committed to masonry built homes.

Henning Larsen and Volvo are working on the design of a new consumer-facing experience center called The World of Volvo ahead of its debut early next year in the automaker’s hometown of Gothenburg, Sweden. Henning Larsen computational designer Leonardo Castaman recently explained on LinkedIn some details related to the project team’s seven-step process using the Kangaroo and Galapagos plugins on Grasshopper to create the wooden superstructure of the 236,800-square-foot building. The design incorporates computer-fabricated glulam beams and columns with locally-sourced CLT floor slabs. The materials were selected to promote a circular economy in line with the philosophical notion of “Allemansrätten,” a Swedish concept that essentially translates to “leave nothing behind.”