PLP Architecture’s Oakwood Timber Tower 2 is built like a basketweave

By Lloyd Alter
TreeHugger
October 6, 2017
Category: Wood, Paper & Green Building
Region: International

I was stumped by their Timber Tower 1, but I am on board with this. One hundred years ago, many of our buildings were built out of wood; now it’s popular again, not only because they are carbon neutral or positive and are built from a renewable resource, but they also go up faster with fewer workers and fewer truckloads of materials. Eighty years ago, engineers like Sir Barnes Wallis built airplanes like the Wellington bomber with geodetic “basketweave” airframes because they were strong and light: “The principle is that two geodesic arcs can be drawn to intersect on a curving surface (the fuselage) in a manner that the torsional load on each cancels out that on the other.” Now PLP architects are blending these two old technologies in their latest tall wood tower, the Oakwood Tower 2 “The Lodge”, to be built in the Netherlands. It has an interesting geodetic curved basketweave structure, just like the old Wellington, which should make it lighter and stronger.

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