Category Archives: Wood, Paper & Green Building

A university library described as the “epitome” of sustainable construction has been recognised with the UK’s most eminent architecture award. The Royal Institute of British Architects (Riba) has named The New Library of Magdalene College in Cambridge the winner of the 2022 Riba Stirling Prize. Set within the college grounds in central Cambridge, the modern 24-hour library was designed by Niall McLaughlin Architects with the aim of lasting 400 years. Sustainability was also high on the agenda, and the brick structure minimises energy use through a grid of chimneys which support the floors and bookshelves while carrying warm air upwards to ventilate the building. Its timber structure also reduced the carbon embodied in its construction, and high, vaulted windows allow natural light to flood in.

Architecture studio Mitsubishi Jisho Design has completed an 11-storey hybrid timber hotel in Sapporo, Japan, that was designed to use as much local timber and as little concrete as possible. …The architects claim that the building is the first hybrid timber high-rise hotel to be built in Japan. It uses a combination of concrete and timber construction methods to achieve the desired height while fulfilling Japan’s strict building standards in relation to earthquakes and fire safety. The tower’s basement and the first seven storeys are constructed using reinforced concrete with wood interiors. The eighth-storey hotel features a hybrid structure combining concrete and cross-laminated timber flooring, while the three upper storeys and roof are built entirely from wood. …Wood is also used throughout the interior, including for the formwork in some of the guest rooms, which is left in place and secured with steel reinforcing rods.

With his plan to build the world’s tallest hybrid timber tower in South Perth, Grange Development’s James Dibble insists he is not trying to revolutionise building in one go but to significantly shift the dial. As he explains, “We had to redesign this building over and over again, because we refused just to increase apartment prices to justify the increase in cost. The whole intent was to move the needle forward. To take the industry from zero per cent hybrid buildings to 5-10 per cent.” If the 50-storey tower is approved by the City of South Perth, C6, as it is known, named after the chemical symbol for Carbon, will be Australia’s second carbon-negative apartment after the Atlassian, headquarters under construction in Sydney) and three metres higher than Atlassian. This means it will remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere rather than adding it.

The competition winning design of Ørestad Church in Copenhagen, Denmark, features a structure built in wood and wood shingles to ground the building in its forest surroundings , in hopes of evoking spirituality within worshippers. Danish architecture firm, Henning Larsen, in collaboration with Danish design studio, Platant, and engineering and consultancy group, Ramboll, have come up with the design. A key feature is the sculptural roof and a combination of wooden roof domes—designed to conjure the sensation of standing under a canopy of trees, to serve as a new sustainable landmark, and marking a natural meeting place for the local community. … The facade of the church is rough, similar to bark on a tree, and changes character through the seasons and over time. …Construction is expected to start in 2024, and the church will be consecrated in 2026.

The Irish Green Building Council (IGBC) launched a roadmap to decarbonise Ireland’s construction and built environment sector. According to the “Building a Zero Carbon Ireland” report, the construction and built environment account for 37% of Ireland’s carbon emissions, the same as agriculture. This is made up of about 23% operational emissions associated with the energy we use to heat, cool, and light our buildings, with the remaining 14% being accounted for by embodied carbon. Embodied emissions result from quarrying, transporting, and manufacturing building materials, in addition to constructing buildings and infrastructure. Projections to 2030 show the national retrofit programme will lead to a significant decrease in emissions from operating buildings. However, new construction outlined in the National Development Plan and the Housing for All policy will likely negate these savings unless embodied emissions are fully addressed. The roadmap … proposes, among other things: To encourage … a greater use of biobased materials such as timber.

Mies van der Rohe’s Barcelona Pavilion, built for that city’s 1929 International Exhibition, has been celebrated for its elegant use of stainless steel, marble and glass. But what were the environmental consequences of Mies’s material choices? For the next 10 days, visitors to the pavilion (which was dismantled in 1930 and recreated in the 1980s) will be forced to consider that question, thanks to an installation that mimics, hugs and overlooks Mies’s masterwork but is made entirely of timber—specifically, cross-laminated timber (CLT) from Galician forests. Alan Organschi … performed a life cycle analysis for each component of Mies’s building and for equivalent components made of timber. …Organschi says that, despite the promise of timber, it’s “only one piece of the puzzle. Another piece is making buildings that last longer. We have to be a bit more austere in our use of materials. And we have to stop tearing down buildings.”

Cepi has unveiled the update of its European harmonised recyclability test method, developed in collaboration with actors from the entire paper value chain, including specialised testing laboratories. Essential to the project was the support of 4evergreen members, which over a 9-month period carried out a battery of tests that informed the improvements of the method and the development of three technical annexes. The method is particularly relevant to the paper packaging industry. …The updated Cepi harmonised recyclability test method offers a solid basis for this work and allows paper products across Europe to be tested for their recyclability in identical conditions. The testing method emulates the processes taking place at industrial scale in paper recycling mills. 

A new edition of the 150-page Swedish Wood CLT handbook has been adapted for the UK market and brought up to date with the latest research and developments by industry experts and Arup. At a time when timber is top of the agenda for de-carbonising construction, and cross-laminated timber (CLT) offers architects and engineers exciting new structural possibilities, the authoritative handbook provides the guidance to ensure the design of safe, resilient, comfortable and sustainable timber buildings. The aim of the CLT Handbook is to help structural engineers and architects design structures using CLT. The handbook describes CLT as a construction material, as well as methods of design. …To ensure the information is kept up to date with research programmes currently underway in Europe, the handbook is available – free – as a searchable web-based publication from Wood Campus, the UK timber industry’s free online information portal, at woodcampus.co.uk/clt-handbook

Within the partnership, Stora Enso and EcoTelligent Oy will establish mass timber as the material of choice for telecommunication support structures. The collaboration is set to provide an alternative that will reduce the dependency on steel and concrete in telecom masts, through sustainable towers that naturally blend in with the environment. EcoTelligent is a Finnish-based company committed to adding renewable wooden elements to communication towers. Their towers are proving to be a significant step in the transition towards more sustainable construction, integrating our community spaces with the local environment. The 5G and beyond towers will be constructed with laminated veneer lumber (LVL). LVL, in proportion to weight, is twice as strong as steel and has a high load-bearing capacity that can easily support telecommunication equipment. LVL is relatively lightweight to transport and can be assembled in modules on site without heavy-duty equipment. 

NEW ZEALAND—Tauranga City Council’s new office building at 90 Devonport Road is set to be the largest mass timber office building in New Zealand and will target a net zero carbon footprint for the building’s construction process. Warren and Mahoney’s 90 Devonport, a 10,000m2, eight-storey, mass timber office building in Tauranga for property developer Willis Bond, is targeting a low-embodied-carbon footprint, with the use of a mass timber structure replacing traditional concrete and steel elements. …the architects are working with Willis Bond, Tauranga City Council and mana whenua to incorporate matauranga Maori principles throughout the design. Sustainable benefits are key drivers for the project. …“Mass timber construction enables the building to store more carbon than it emits during the construction phase,” adds architect Divya Purushotham, “setting a significant benchmark, particularly for the Tauranga region.”

TASMANIA—To some, the term “sustainability” is synonymous with higher costs … but as the construction sector grapples with severe worker shortages, going green could be a saving grace. The new St Lukes Health headquarters in Tasmania has been pitched as one of the most sustainable offices in the country, largely due to its use of engineered wood products such as cross-laminated timber and glued laminated timber, or glulam. While these products cost more than conventional materials such as concrete, St Lukes Health director of strategy Martin Rees believes they are worth it. “It’s definitely a more expensive way to construct at the moment, but the offset is that you can construct more rapidly,” he said. …Mr Rees said engineered wood products allowed builders to construct “about a floor a week” once they were “out of the ground”. …He hopes the project will serve as a proof-of-concept for others to embrace sustainable materials.

It smells like a lush pine forest in the lunch room of a new upper secondary school in Helsinki, but there’s no scented air freshener. Instead, most of the five-storey building has been constructed out of wood. The school won’t be completed until next year, although smooth wooden panels already line many of the interior walls. Wood has also been used in load-bearing structures, to support the ceilings between the floors, and as cladding on the exterior. “It’s a more sustainable choice,” says Miimu Airaksinen, an engineer and vice president of development at SRV, the Finnish construction company behind the school. “But we’re also working with wood because wood is a nice material, people appreciate and like wood and the design of wood.” The project is part of a growing trend in the Finnish building industry.

You are the Head of Global Engineered Wood in the Adhesive Technologies business unit at Henkel. How did this department emerge? Christian Fild: We started off as a small business 25 years ago which was later acquired by Henkel. When cross-laminated timber, a new wood-based material, entered the market, the industry was looking for a suitable adhesive. At that time, Henkel launched a very specific adhesive technology: a polyurethane adhesive for wood bonding. The technology proved to be very well-suited for wood construction, and our division has since grown a lot – particularly strongly in the last seven years, in which wooden construction has transformed from a niche product into a larger industry segment. Our formaldehyde-free polyurethane adhesives were the first ones to meet the high standards for load-bearing wood construction. Adhesives containing formaldehyde work very well, but they are also carcinogenic which is why they are used less and less.

Timber is growing in popularity as a sustainable construction material, [as is] the need for fire retardants that don’t pose a threat to human health. …the fire retardants we use to protect building materials often contain dangerous toxic chemicals. Pollution from fire retardants is a major safety risk that cannot be ignored. Construction professionals must be made aware of the dangers to help protect lives and limit the environmental impacts of these harmful chemicals. This means ensuring only the safest, most sustainable options are specified for projects. …as the construction industry continues to grow, further research and technological innovations are helping to increase the availability of non-toxic, safer fire retardants. More environmentally friendly products will help to ensure the chemicals we are putting into building materials are safe, helping assure a greener, cleaner future for construction. Currently, however, there is still a long way to go.