Category Archives: Wood, Paper & Green Building

VIENNA, Austria — Last week, the Viennese City Council approved the zoning and development plan for Europe’s first urban quarter featuring hybrid lumber. The so-called Leopold Quarter will be built on the Danube Canal, an artificial branch of the river, made to help regulate flooding. …Due to the building’s unique design and material usage, they will emit much less CO2 during construction and throughout their lifetime. Wooden high-rise buildings have started to take hold of the construction sector, as the industry tries to decarbonise. …The LeopoldQuartier is the first urban district in Europe to be built entirely using a timber hybrid construction method. Furthermore, after it is complete, it will be powered through 100% green-energy – geothermal and a photovoltaic system. Consequently, the complex should have net-zero emissions and according to the developers.

Dutch architecture firm Powerhouse Company has used cross-laminated timber to construct an off-grid office building that floats on water. …The three-storey building is constructed on a set of 15 “concrete barges” that allow it to float on Rotterdam’s Rijnhaven, a former industrial harbour on the Maas river. A wooden structure, including cross-laminated timber (CLT) floor slabs, contributes to the building’s low carbon footprint and also ensures it is light enough to float. …The building is the largest of its kind in the world… The wooden structure consists of prefabricated frames that were simply screwed together on-site, meaning they could be disassembled and recycled in the future. “The building structure is designed in wood and can easily be demounted and re-used,” said architect and project leader, Paul Sanders. …Powerhouse Company sees the project as an example of how architecture can adapt to the rising sea levels caused by climate change.

Timber Development UK has signed up to The Anti-Greenwash Charter as the next step in its sustainability journey. The Charter is sponsored by the Alliance for Sustainable Building Products, and requires organisations to make a public declaration to uphold good standards of marketing practice, adopt a Green Claims Policy and, by doing so, adhere to the Government’s Green Claims Code and Code for Construction Product Information. Having signed up to the Charter, TDUK has written a Green Claims Policy to set out the standards it has committed to in its marketing and communications. The organisation also requires all its members to abide by these standards. …The policy sets out practices that TDUK will follow to ensure all its communications comply with the Anti-Greenwash Charter and also includes key definitions of green terms commonly used to describe timber and wood-based products and services to help its members do the same.

UNITED KINGDOM—The MP for Bassetlaw, Brendan Clarke-Smith, witnessed first-hand the important role that waste wood plays in the circular economy during a visit to R Plevin & Sons’ wood recycling site in Nottinghamshire on 14 October. The visit came as the Wood Recyclers’ Association (WRA) officially launched a nationwide MP Engagement Project, intended to improve understanding of wood recycling among policymakers and to build a network of MPs who support the industry. Clarke-Smith was shown around the 12-acre wood processing site at Elkesley where around 150,000 tonnes of wood – including up to 100,000 tonnes of waste wood – is transformed into value-added products each year. …The Elkesley site has benefited from significant investment since being purchased by Plevin in 2002 and features an outdoor wood recycling yard alongside an indoor animal bedding operation featuring state-of-the-art automated screening and baling technology.

West Fraser’s SterlingOSB Zero is the first and only OSB produced in the UK to be free from formaldehyde added during the manufacturing process: hence the ‘Zero’ moniker. SterlingOSB Zero is also one of the most popular panel products employed here, widely used structurally for walls, roofs and applications such as shop-fitting and offsite fabrication. How SterlingOSB Zero is manufactured is, in itself, a complex and fascinating process: beginning with the trees being harvested from UK or European forests, which are de-branched/cut to size and delivered as green timber to the wood storage area of the factory. …West Fraser’s sustainably managed operations from forest to factory gate contribute to SterlingOSB Zero’s manufacture being a net carbon negative process, and therefore another reason for its wide specification across the UK, as the construction industry tries to reduce its environmental impact.

The island of Zanzibar in the Republic of Tanzania is planning the world’s tallest hybrid mass timber tower, a 28-storey residential and commercial building to reach a height of 96 m (315 ft). Once built, this tower will leave behind the world’s tallest mass timber building in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, which currently sits at 85.4 m (280 ft). The tower with 266 residences will be in Fumba Town, an ecologically sensitive residential development in East Africa, proposed by German-led engineering firm CPS. Named Burj Zanzibar—”Burj” meaning tower in Arabic—the high-rise is dubbed as a “vertical green village” for its abundant green roof gardens and planted balconies, which aim to further reduce the carbon footprint of the building. …Burj Zanzibar will feature a steel-reinforced concrete core, designed to meet all required fire and life safety standards. It will also use locally available wood as a building material to enhance its sustainability outcomes.

Lines of shops display neat stacks of willow wood in Indian-controlled Kashmir’s Sangam village. Behind the shops are small manufacturing units, where that willow is hand-made into cricket bats sold around the world. …Kashmir’s dwindling willow plantations are impacting the region’s famed cricket bat industry, and risking the supply of cricket bats in India, where the sport is hugely followed. The industry employs more than 10,000 people and manufactures nearly 1 million bats every year. …Tens of thousands of towering willow trees were introduced to the picturesque Himalayan region by the British in the early 19th century to maintain the supply of firewood during Kashmir’s harsh winters. However, over the years, farmers in the region have been planting poplars in place of willows. The faster-growing poplar tree is preferred by the booming plywood industry. 

Treewow Villa O is an 80sqm villa hotel designed by MONOARCHI at Siming Mountain in Yuyao, Zhejiang, China. The tree house is located on one side of the dyke, surrounded by an ancient bamboo forest near an old tea factory. The small river divides the village into two parts, north and south; the tree hotel is located in the western part of the forest. The tree house is 8 meters high, surrounded by forest, and divided into two parts; the lower part is made of steel and supports the structure; the upper part is mainly wood. The curved roof of the tree house creates a sense of floating. The steel columns are located in a small land area, providing more open space around the structure. The connection between the tree house and the surrounding landscape creates a unique ambiance.

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.