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Dutch studio Powerhouse Company has completed Valckensteyn in Rotterdam, a mass-timber block of affordable apartments that references the area’s iconic post-war social housing. Located in the neighbourhood of Pendrecht, the block of 82 affordable rental apartments is Rotterdam’s first mass-timber residential building. Completed for local housing corporation Woonstad Rotterdam, the block was designed by Powerhouse Company to be a homage to the neighbourhood’s iconic post-war housing blocks. …While concrete was used to construct both this central core and a ground floor plinth, the rest of the building was constructed from cross-laminated timber (CLT), which Powerhouse Company feels is an “essential” material for meeting housing demands. …”We believe that wood is the material of the future not only because of its environmental footprint benefits, but also for efficiency reasons,” Prins told Dezeen.