Category Archives: Wood, Paper & Green Building

“The mobility of the future will be more diverse, smarter, more shared, cleaner and greener. Cities must again be there for people, not cars, protecting the environment,” says Belgian-born, Paris-based architect Vincent Callebaut who seeks to reinvent the automobile and transport sector with Timber Mobilities, a range of 5 prototype vehicles designed for “peaceful and ecological mobility on land, in the air and on the water”. Designed by a team of 5 architects at Vincent Callebaut Architectures using AI assistance, the five prototypes combine ergonomic architecture with a biomimetic design, renewable energy (solar, biohydrogen, green micro-algae), and a mix of bio-based materials (cross laminated timber and engineered bamboo) and recycled materials (recycled aluminium and fibreglass) to showcase a vision of the mobility of the future. The five imaginative vehicles include the hydrofoil – a ferry boat; VTOL bus – a flying bus; shuttle – a public transport vehicle; bike – a light bicycle; and car – an autonomous vehicle for city driving.

Ambitious concepts like Nikken Sekkei’s proposal for the world’s tallest timber skyscraper can accelerate the use of engineered wood but should not be the focus, argues Hajime Aoyagi. Aoyagi is part of a team at Japanese studio Nikken Sekkei that is working on a joint research project with wood manufacturer Sumitomo Forestry centred on a concept for the world’s tallest wooden building in Tokyo. …”It is not intended for immediate construction at this point in time, but by setting major goals, it aims to create a roadmap for technological development and uncover issues that need to be solved [in mass timber],” explained Aoyagi. …For him, the true value of the concept lies in sparking interest in mass timber and encouraging its uptake – particularly in Japan and help push the country to achieve a “low-carbon age”. However, this is hindered by the cost of domestic wood products, caused by the decline of its forestry industry.

Sustainable structural timber offers a range of benefits related to reducing the environmental footprint of buildings and construction processes. We will explore how sustainable structural timber (SST) can contribute towards achieving net zero. First, this article will examine how using SST in buildings reduces their embodied carbon – that is, the total amount of greenhouse gas released during the production process. It will then look at other advantages of SST, such as its durability and low maintenance requirements, which reduce energy use over time. Finally, it will identify opportunities for SST to achieve greater efficiency in construction projects and meet higher sustainability standards. By exploring these various aspects, this paper seeks to demonstrate how utilizing sustainable structural timber could be an effective strategy for achieving net zero carbon emissions in the building sector by 2050.

Andrew Waugh

…As a founding director of Waugh Thistleton Architects, Waugh has been developing buildings with cross-laminated timber structures for 15 years. …He is skeptical of the growing trend for timber high-rises and proposals to build tall skyscrapers out of wood, questioning whether they make best use of the material. “Architecture practices are coming out with computer generated images of supertall buildings, with an arrow that says timber,” he said. “It’s bullshit, because if you’re going to build a tall building in timber, you still have to fill it full of concrete to make sure it doesn’t wave around.” …The architect’s worry is that interest in timber has become fashionable and could be seen as a passing trend. “This could be a moment of fashion that we’re in, rather than the beginning of a paradigm shift, which is what it needs to be,” he said.

Next in our Timber Revolution series, we profile a university laboratory by Austrian studio Nussmüller Architekten that was conceived as both an advert and a testing centre for the capabilities of mass timber. Built at the turn of the millennium, the Bau Technik Zentrum (BTZ), which translates as the Construction Technology Centre, was commissioned to house the timber-engineering department at Graz University of Technology (TU Graz) in Austria. …The BTZ …was one of the first examples of panel-system mass-timber construction, and the first timber building with a curved roof, according to Nussmüller. Furthermore, it became the place where much of the early technical research that led to cross-laminated timber (CLT) becoming a practical building material took place. The building [was] partly based on the vision of Gerhard Schickhofer. Schickhofer’s PhD thesis on the huge potential of laminated timber panels layered in alternating directions was instrumental in the development of CLT as a product.

…While wind turbines may project a carbon friendly image …the steel, concrete, and plastics that go into making them take their toll on the environment. End of their life poses additional problems [much of the carbon ends] up in landfill. …The solution … could lie with laminated wood and ‘Ikea-style flatpack’ pieces. The idea of wood-based wind turbines has taken hold in north Europe, where firms are on the verge of scaling up prototypes and early versions. In Germany, start-up firm Voodin Blade Technology is working with Finnish timber specialist Stora Enso to develop wooden turbine blades. …Because the engineered wood it uses is stronger than steel at the same weight but less expensive to produce, it opens the prospect of wood being used to construct ever taller towers – meeting a key demand of the wind energy sector and without the need for costly reinforcements.

SUMA Arquitectura, the Madrid studio led by Elena Orte and Guillermo Sevillano, designed the Gabriela García Márquez Library as a sculptural volume inspired by stacks of books. An expressive CLT (cross-laminated timber) panel structure characterizes the compact faceted volume of the library in Barcelona’s Sant Martí neighborhood. SUMA’s design of the library is presented as a sculptural solid recreating the typical corner chamfer of the Barcelona street grid. Raised above the first floor, set back from the site boundary, the overhang of the upper floors creates a porticoed entrance plaza, with additional cover coming from the imposing existing trees predating the library. Four large openings are cut through the facade’s cladding — a system made of polyurethane and fiberglass resin slats — to frame neighborhood views for the patrons inside the building.

A stadium by Zaha Hadid Architects and housing by Adjaye Associates feature in this roundup of upcoming wooden buildings, curated as part of our Timber Revolutionseries. Also featured on the list are towers, university buildings and an airport terminal, illustrating mass timber’s potential for use in a variety of architectural projects. Read on for 11 upcoming buildings with mass-timber structures:

• Zaha Hadid Architects – the world’s first timber football stadium in England
• Schmidt Hammer Lassen – In Switzerland, the world’s tallest wooden building.
• Henning Larsen Architects – meeting place for Volvo in Gothenburg, Sweden.
• Adjaye Associates – one of the largest residential structures in Canada.
• BIG and HOK – the mass-timber terminal for Zurich airport.
• Powerhouse Company – Tilburg University Lecture Hall, Netherlands.
• Jakob+MacFarlane and T.ark – mixed-use building in Reykjavík, Iceland.
• EMBT – Naples Underground Central Station in Italy.
• Alison Brooks Architects – education building for the University of Cambridge. 
• Urban Agency – extension to an existing mill in Dublin, Ireland
• Diller Scofidio + Renfro and Stefano Boeri Architetti – Office skyscraper in Milan.

Increasing use of mass timber in architecture is driving good forest management practices in the United States, says Forest Business Network (FBN) co-founder Arnie Didier… as part of our Timber Revolution series. Mass-timber manufacturers are seeking to emphasize the benefits for forestry and resource management in conversations with politicians and the construction industry as they try to encourage take-up. …The 2022 mass timber study released by FBN outlines how, in order to manage fires, forest stewards often strip trees and implement controlled burns so as to thin out the stock and preserve the more mature trees traditionally used in timber products. …Lech Musynski, a professor at Oregon State University, agreed that converting otherwise-useless trees to manage fires into mass timber could incentivize better practices. By utilizing wood that would otherwise get burned, mass timber allows for more carbon to be sequestered.

Andrew Waugh

UK — A highlight of January’s Property Week climate crisis summit was listening to Andrew Waugh extol the virtues of mass timber construction while assuaging the myriad concerns of his audience. There is excitement within the industry about the decarbonising potential of mass timber (MT) and it is encouraging to see the number of MT projects now coming through planning. There are, however, still misconceptions that continue to impede its widespread adoption. Obtaining construction and property insurance is more difficult than for steel and concrete, but not impossible… provided insurers are engaged early in the design process and given the opportunity to understand, and influence the management of, key risk factors. Preconceived notions about the limitations of MT when building at scale or at height are also being challenged. …Preconceived notions about the limitations of MT when building at scale or at height are also being challenged.

A Timber Revolution requires us to focus on reducing mass-timber structures’ raw-material use instead of trying to design the tallest possible wooden building, writes Maximilian Pramreiter. The renaissance of wood as a building material continues and has major potential to support climate-friendly construction – but it must be used efficiently. …The combination of steel frames, formwork concrete and glass facades led to the emergence of skyscrapers and marks the beginning of the age of steel at the end of the 19th century. …Quite naturally, a similar race to construct the highest timber building has started. Architecture publications are full of the newest, loftiest wooden skyscrapers, such as Ascent Tower in the USA. …The race to build the tallest mass-timber skyscraper is therefore missing the point over the longer term. The real race should be to build the mass-timber building with the smallest raw-material footprint.

B.C. forest industry representatives participated in the first post-pandemic wood products trade mission to India from January 14 to 20, 2023.  Led by B.C.’s Deputy Minister of Forests, Rick Manwaring, the mission enabled delegates to assess current market opportunities and progress of FII India’s market development program, meet with customers and partners, and encourage expanded use of B.C. wood products. The itinerary included stops in New Delhi, Hyderabad and Jodhpur. The delegation met with many Indian companies, manufacturers and builders, and visited finished projects in India using Canadian wood products. The mission showcased the growing use of B.C. Coastal species in India’s manufacturing sector for wooden furniture, doors, windows and interior finishing applications. In addition, it highlighted opportunities for Interior Spruce, Pine, Fir (S-P-F) and wood building products for light-frame construction in the region.  

UNITED KINGDOM — The timber industry has launched a comprehensive new fire safety website: Fire Safety: Wood in Construction. It gives users a free, single point of access to information and guidance on this multi-faceted and safety-critical subject and is designed for all construction professionals. The site has been developed as a collaborative project between Swedish Wood, Timber Development UK (TDUK) and the Structural Timber Association (STA), with a commitment to a periodic review and update curation process to reflect any changes in regulation, outcomes of latest research and industry guidance. The information in this first iteration has been provided by technical and industry experts from the UK and Sweden, reviewed by a separate expert group drawn from the UK timber industry and independent consultants and curated by Julie Bregulla, consultant to Swedish Wood.

Dezeen’s latest series investigates the potential of mass timber. Starting today, Timber Revolution will question whether the material can break steel and concrete’s hold over the construction industry. The world’s oldest building material is making a comeback. …Nevertheless, mass-timber only represents a tiny proportion of the overall number of buildings constructed worldwide each year, with steel and concrete still firmly embedded as the structural material of choice. …The European cross-laminated timber market produced reached 1.6 million cubic metres in 2022. That’s around a third of the amount of concrete used each month in the UK alone. …In the US, the Wood Products Council estimates that in total only 1,677 mass-timber projects have been built, or are in the process of being designed. All that could be about to change. …Unlike concrete and steel, which are associated with huge embodied emissions, timber represents the active sequestration of carbon from the atmosphere by trees. But is it scalable?The dawn of the Timber Revolution

An editorial series exploring the potential of mass timber that asks whether going back to wood as our primary construction material can lead the world to a more sustainable future.

“We can’t detox our built environment by swapping out fossil-fuelled building materials for timber” – The way we build must fundamentally shift to harmonise with tree and carbon cycles in order to realise the Timber Revolution.

“Timber is being abused” says architect Hermann Kaufmann – Sloppiness and misinformation are threatening to prevent large-scale wood construction from reaching its full potential, argues Hermann Kaufmann – the “grandfather of mass timber”.

Fourteen homes where exposed cross-laminated timber creates cosy interiors – Our latest lookbook features cross-laminated timberinteriors, including a colourful German vacation home and a tenement-style housing development in Edinburgh.

Ölzbündt housing shows that “criticism of the longevity of wooden buildings is unfounded” – The first of our Timber Revolution case studies looks at an innovative, early example of mass timber, multi-storey housing designed by Austrian studio HK Architekten in the 1990s.

Traditional timber construction, Türkiye’s cultural heritage, provides unprecedented durability, quake-resistant properties, and minimal environmental impact, say experts. …the February 6 earthquakes that left thousands of modern buildings in Türkiye and Syria in heaps of mangled steel and concrete have put the spotlight back on wood-based dwellings. Architects and building experts say that wood could be the primary building block for earthquake-resistant houses in an area lying directly atop one of the most active seismic zones in the world. And though this would mean cutting trees, they say, it can be achieved without harming the environment. …Today, many engineers and architects in Türkiye acknowledge that if traditional wooden-framed buildings are appropriately installed, they may fully serve the purpose of durability. …Ahmet Turer, a professor of civil engineering at the Middle East Technical University in Türkiye, emphasises that the question “why wood?” has several answers, alongside its ecological benefits.

Related coverage in the WSJ: After Turkey’s Earthquakes, Erdogan Starts Rebuilding Over Objections

Smith Mordak

The way we build must fundamentally shift to harmonise with tree and carbon cycles in order to realise the Timber Revolution. There’s an argument that’s often trotted out against building with timber: there isn’t enough of it. The fear is that if we built everything out of wood there wouldn’t be a tree left standing. This fear seems to be rooted in the idea that sustainability is about substitutions. For example, swapping out concrete, steel, and masonry for timber, but otherwise carrying on exactly as we have been. If we did that, we could well deforest the earth; meeting our targets while catastrophically missing the point. The pursuit of sustainability shouldn’t be to find a ‘green’ way to destroy ecosystems – yes I’m going to poison you, but don’t worry, the poison is organic – it should be about finding a way to live as part of a healthy, regenerative ecosystem.

Berlin, Germany’s Moto Bicycle Innovations has released the MOTO Pedals – unique pedals that are super flat, have no bearings, and are actually made of wood. MOTO says they are perfect for the urban rider, like the commuter, fixed gear rider, or even the flat land BMXer. The Moto Pedals are “dead simple, super comfy, and provide unrivaled grip under urban (non-muddy) conditions”. The Classic and the Colour are both constructed of a waterproof, multi-layered wooden frame. …The sturdy wooden frame is uniformly stained to match the other outer surfaces. It is “weather sealed in the same fashion as a premium wooden boat”.