Category Archives: Wood, Paper & Green Building

In an effort to build a more sustainable future, architects and policy makers are nodding to the past with structures entirely made of timber. …Next up in this timber trend: a Copenhagen neighborhood built fully with wood, with housing for 7,000 people, a school, and a focus on integrating nature with city life. Danish architecture company Henning Larsen is designing the development, called Fælledby …For this neighborhood’s construction, Henning Larsen plan to use prefabricated timber panels sourced from partners throughout Europe. “They must of course be sustainably sourced, nontoxic . . . that’s just a minimum,” Kongebro says. Henning Larsen will become Copenhagen’s first new neighborhood built entirely in timber. The Scandanavian city has a rich history in wood construction, with Denmark as a whole most well-known for its “half-timber” architecture that dates back to the Middle Ages. Kongebro sees this new twist on the old ways as a “paradigm shift.”

One of the leading exponents of modular housebuilding based on cross-laminated timber technology is to move to using steel-framed systems for its planned apartment buildings. London and South-east housing association Swan, which set up a 400-homes-a-year modular housebuilding factory in 2017 to deliver its 3,500-home development pipeline, told Housing Today the decision to switch to steel followed the government’s ban on combustible materials in the external walls of homes more than 18m in height. …Critics of the government’s combustibles ban, introduced in the wake of the Grenfell Tower disaster, predicted the legislation would turn the UK from a world-leader in cross-laminated timber (CLT) into a “backwater”. …Lendlease announced early last year it was ending its programme of CLT apartments in the UK, with L&G following suit in December. …Anthony Thistleton, founder of CLT specialist architect Waugh Thistleton, said [the ban] could prompt a collapse of CLT use in the UK

A representative of France’s top architects said that Notre-Dame Cathedral’s roof should be rebuilt in wood, not in metal or concrete as some have proposed. French President Emmanuel Macron has said he favors adding a “contemporary” touch in the course of rebuilding the spire… Eric Wirth, a member of an association of the country’s architects, however, weighed in to say that replacing the roof with wood makes sense for practical reasons. “The most modern and ecological material today is wood,” said Wirth, of the Guild of French Architects. Wirth added that wood is more fire-resistant than the alternatives, and would also trap carbon. “Had the cathedral been built in concrete or steel it would not still be there,” he added. “Even with all the (chemical) protection treatments, given the intensity of the blaze … the steel would have held for half an hour and then it would have twisted, pulling on the walls and everything would have collapsed”.

Stockholm/Paris — Making one’s own actions more sustainable is a good resolution for the new year. A first simple step is to consider the environment when choosing your own packaging, for example by using paper bags. To what extent paper carrier bags contribute to combating climate change has been summarised in a new infographic. It was published by the platform “The Paper Bag”, an association of Europe’s leading manufacturers of kraft paper and paper carrier bags. “In a world facing challenges such as globalisation, climate change and a scarcity of raw materials, it is vital that consumers can make informed decisions,” explains Kennert Johansson, Acting Secretary General of CEPI Eurokraft. “With our infographic, we want to raise awareness of the advantages of paper carrier bags as sustainable packaging that contribute to reducing littering and environmental pollution.” Paper bags are made from wood, an ever-growing resource.

Finnish dairy product manufacturer Valio and pulp and paper manufacturer Stora Enso are planning to introduce wood fibre-based reusable lids made from a biocomposite.  Encouraging consumers to reduce waste, the partners will distribute 10,000 reusable lids through Valio’s promotional sales demonstrations early this year.  Valio and Stora Enso will use the reusable lids to test the wood-based biocomposite in food packaging. It will help the companies understand how biocomposite reacts when in contact with food.  Valio packaging development manager Jussi-Pekka Lumme said: “With this pilot project we are encouraging people to take small, concrete actions to reduce food waste. The lid makes it easy to protect the unused crème fraiche or quark.

Since 2017, China’s crackdown on waste paper imports has reconfigured the global pulp, paper and board industry – and there’s more disruption to come. From the Americas and Europe to India, Vietnam, Indonesia, and Thailand, every market has been affected. …”By stopping the flow of unsorted waste paper into its ports, China launched a tidal wave of change throughout the world’s fiber, paper, and board markets,” said Hannah Zhao. “Every region’s response has, in turn, affected other markets as well,” Zhao said. “Now Indonesia is also looking to crack down on waste paper imports, even as its industry is using that fiber to boost production,” explained Zhao. “And China’s powerful pulp and paper industry is buying and building capacity in the US and other nations to circumvent domestic supply issues.”

A biotech startup is researching building materials that could revolutionise construction. Not only are they biodegradable – some also absorb toxins. Cocoa husks, dried orange peel, ground blue pea flowers: the ingredients read like a tasting menu. They are, in fact, waste products that are used to make Orb – a sustainable building material that is carbon neutral. It’s versatile enough to be used for furniture or as a substitute for a wood-based sheet material. Orb is produced by Biohm, a startup founded in 2016 by Ehab Sayed. …Sayed’s “material development journey” led him to Open Cell, a community of biotech startups … in west London. With a small team … he has developed two materials: Orb, made out of food or agricultural waste, and mycelium insulation, made by feeding waste to the root system of mushrooms. “The aim is to replace every harmful construction material with something sustainable and higher performing,” Sayed explains. 

…As a nation that has historically been prone to bushfires and its fatal repercussions it is curious as to how initiatives like the Victorian Bushfire Reconstruction and Recovery Authority’s We will Rebuild initiative, stopped short after a mere 19 pro bono designs, and even fewer houses materialised thereafter. …Why are bushfire resistant homes so scarce in Australia? …Weir… stated that the designs seemed to some, ‘a bit foreign, a bit alien.’ …As ember attack is the primary cause for the loss of thousands of homes during the bushfires’ havoc, practicality over the wooden porch seems rife in BAL-40 zones. Weir adds, “The cheapest thing to do is exclude verandahs and decks, and work with either the verandah being internalised or have masonry terraces – integrating landscape design with the house design as a first principle.”

If you’ve ever dreamt of sleeping in a treehouse, look no further. If you’ve ever dreamt of sleeping in a treehouse, look no further. Kitzbühel is a ritzy ski resort with a medieval town center located between Salzburg and Innsbruck in the Austrian Alps. As part of a new 7-star hotel project in Kitzbühel, Peter Pichler Architecture has proposed a design for luxury “tree suites” that rise above the surrounding forest. Each suite will be accessible by a glass elevator, hidden in the wooden latticed structure on which the suites are elevated. …The use of local wood in the design will create a “warm feeling,” the firm said in a release.

With the Tokyo Olympics and Paralympics taking place this year, prefectures in the Chubu region are eager to make the sporting event an opportunity to promote their local produce. In the village of Higashishirakawa, Gifu Prefecture, whose land is 90 percent covered by mountainous forests, numerous Japanese cypress trees are seen growing straight toward the sky alongside a 3-meter-wide unpaved road. …Tono Hinoki, a brand of Japanese cypress trees produced in Higashishirakawa and five other municipalities in Gifu was used to construct the Village Plaza, a part of the Olympic Village built in the Harumi waterfront area of Tokyo. …Shipments recovered slightly in recent years following the enforcement of a law to promote the use of wood in public buildings in 2010, but sale prices remain low. …With that in mind, Gifu sees the Tokyo Olympics and Paralympics as a good opportunity to further promote its wood.

Henning Larsen architects plans fælledby, Copenhagen’s first all-timber neighborhood designed to accommodate 7,000 residents as well as 40 percent undeveloped nature. Illustrating how new developments can combine sustainable architecture and environmentalist principles to serve people and animals alike, the project will be entirely timber construction, with individual buildings featuring birdhouses and animal habitats integrated within the building façades. The proposal transforms a former dumping ground site just beyond the city center into a model for sustainable living balancing human priorities with a strong commitment to the natural surroundings. Their timber-construction proposal aims to reduce the carbon impact of the development, since, compared to alternative materials such as steel or concrete, timber captures and stores CO2 during its growth – as a building material, it actively removes CO2 from the environment as it is produced. 

LAS VEGAS, Nevada — Toyota has long been a proponent of hydrogen fuel cells powering vehicles, and the company unveiled plans for an entire city powered by the zero-emission technology. Woven City, as it is called, is described as a “living laboratory”… at the base of Mt. Fuji in Japan. Groundbreaking will come in 2021. …The term Woven City relates to how the prototype community’s grid of three different transportation networks weave together. …President Akio Toyoda explained that the city will be a home to residents and researchers who will be able to test and develop technologies such as autonomous vehicles, robotics, personal mobility and smart homes. …Structures will be made of carbon neutral wood with solar panels on their roofs. The wood buildings will be fabricated using traditional Japanese wood joinery, combined with robotic production methods.

Danish architecture studios Open Platform and JAJA Architects have won an open competition to design Denmark’s first all-timber parking garage in the coastal city of Aarhus. Designed with a reduced environmental footprint, the new multilevel parking garage will be built from cross-laminated timber and partly enveloped in greenery to help contribute to the country’s goal of becoming carbon neutral by 2050. …Created in collaboration with Rama Studio and Søren Jensen Engineers, the proposed timber parking garage will be located in Aarhus’ South Harbor neighborhood. Spanning an area of 19,300 square meters over six floors… In addition to a total of 700 parking spots, the CLT parking garage will include 2,000 square meters of public facilities, including a gym, a gallery and a cafe. 

Football club Forest Green Rovers has been given the green light to build the world’s first timber football stadium. The club, which is currently based in Nailsworth in the Cotswolds, has been given outline planning consent by Stroud District Council for the new ground after a previous application was rejected in June. …The new ground has been designed by Zaha Hadid Architects and will be capable of housing 5,000 fans in a state-of-the-art wooden stadium close to Junction 12 of the M5 near Stonehouse and Stroud. …The green company said the stadium which would be constructed almost entirely out of timber, would be a world first. By using the material, it said a significant carbon saving could be made. …So the stadium will have the lowest embodied carbon of any sports stadium in the world.”