World’s Tallest Wooden Building Set for Construction in Norway

world's tallest wood building

Stretching a full 173 feet into the sky, a 14-story tower made primarily of wood is set to be built in Norway, making it the world’s tallest. With so many wooden superstructures on the docket, the title is constantly up for grabs, and this sustainable housing project in Bergen may not hold onto it for long. But it’s a testament to just how popular wooden towers are getting as governments around the world relax their building restrictions, paving the way for a whole new world of wooden architecture.

Ole Kleppe and Rune Abrahamsen didn’t intend to create the world’s tallest building when planning their cost-efficient, modular high-rise, which is primarily prefabricated. But after their project was approved, a competing bridge close by meant additional height was needed. Norway previously only allowed buildings nine stories tall, so the team had to simultaneously push for new laws and innovate a safe, strong structure.

It’s fitting that this kind of record-setting innovation using wood should occur in Norway, where wooden buildings up to 800 years old are still standing. The architects took their inspiration from Norwegian timber bridges, basically flipping the truss structure vertically.

“We have a lot of experience building large timber bridges in Norway,” says Pbrahamsen. “We were confident that with this tech we could build tall.”

The project, called Treet, is currently under construction. It could be surpassed before long as the University of British Columbia is planning an 18-story student housing project made of wood, scheduled to be completed in 2017. Read more about the tech and building processes involved at the Journal of Commerce.

Wooden Version of the Empire State Building Proves the Possibilities of Wood

wooden empire state building

Dubbing it “the symbol of a new age,” Metsä Wood has teamed up with architect Michael Green to design a sustainable wood version of the Empire State Building, showing off the virtually limitless heights to which wood construction may reach. The Finnish wood products producer presents ‘Plan B’, a series reimagining architectural wonders of the world to show how they could be built from wood instead of their original materials.

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“While many things have changed in 85 years, architects still strive to give form to new ideas about structure, energy consumption, climate change and the list goes on,” says architect Michael Green. “For these reasons the most iconic building of the modern age – the Empire State Building – was chosen for Plan B case. We designed a skyscraper using Metsä Wood’s Kerto LVL engineered wood as the main material from floors to column spacing.”

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The first Plan B project reimagined the Colosseum in Rome, and the third will give the German parliament building known as the Reichstag a timber makeover.

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“Wood construction is the ideal way to both battle climate change and house a growing urban population,” says Metsä Wood’s Andreas Rutschmann. “As a large part of the German Parliament’s work is about environmental legislation, it really makes sense that its home is as sustainable as possible. It was great to hear that Plan B will be presented to the parliament’s department of Energy policy.”

This Week in Wood: World’s Tallest Wood Building Proposed for Paris

tallest wood building

 

Is this sky-high structure the wooden equivalent to the Eiffel Tower? Proposed for Paris, the 35-story tower at the center of the Baobab complex will be the world’s tallest building made of wood if it ends up being built. In collaboration with French architectural partners DVVD and real estate group REI France, Canadian architecture firm MGA submitted the concept for a design competition called Reinventer Paris looking to revitalize architecture in one of the world’s poshest cities.

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Known for his pioneering work in tall wooden structures, lead architect Michael Green envisions the sustainable structure as an environmentally friendly and creative way to approach the city’s housing challenges. The Baobab complex includes residences, a student hotel, a bus station, an e-car hub and park-like green spaces.

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“We love the idea that a wood tower in Paris, however modest in some respects… will help champion a new global wave of building with more sustainable, renewable and beautiful materials,” Green told CNN.

The architects estimate that the wooden high-rise could sequester 3,700 metric tons of carbon emissions, equivalent to taking 2,207 cars off the roads for a year. MGA previously published a study called The Case for Tall Wood Buildings as a guide for other designers to look at the renewable material in a new way. Watch a video of Michael Green discussing the cultural perceptions of building with wood.

 

 

 

 

Trend Watch: Wood is the Most Advanced Building Material

Cross Laminated Timber

There’s a lot of talk about the building materials of the future, as technology makes all sorts of hybrid and nano-materials (which can be made of wood, too) stronger, cheaper and more accessible than ever. But for all of those advancements, one of the world’s most ancient building materials remains at the top of the list: wood. Popular Science features an in-depth examination of why wood is the most advanced building material of them all – and how it’s going to transform city skylines around the globe.

The biggest step forward is the development of CLT, or cross-laminated timber. This isn’t some kind of plasticized or artificial wood product; it’s simply parallel strips of wood that are placed atop each other perpendicularly and then glued together to create enormous panels with steel-like strength.

CLT is cheaper, easier to assemble and more fire-resistant than steel and concrete. In an age of heightened environmental awareness, it’s also more desirable for the fact that wood is renewable and acts as a carbon sink. The strength of CLT beams make it possible to build wood structures taller than ever before, and many countries are changing their building codes as a result.

Much of the CLT that’s currently produced comes from sustainable forests, and a good percentage is made of beetle-damaged pine. Pine bark beetles are the single biggest threat to pine forests, but CLT ensures that the trees affected by this scourge aren’t lost. That makes it an ideal way to get a practical and lucrative use out of what might otherwise be considered a waste material.

Check out plans for large-scale wood skyscrapers and learn more about the top threats to Eastern White Pine and how these majestic, useful trees can be preserved and protected.

Image via: greenspec

34-Story Wooden Skyscraper Planned for Stockholm

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The wooden skyscraper revolution continues as more architects get back to basics, even for structures that reach into the clouds. Sweden’s Berg | C.F. Moller’s proposed design for HSB Stockholm’s architectural competition 2023 envisions a future in which our tallest residential buildings are made of wood. The firm’s 34-story design would be all-wood construction over a concrete core, with both social and environmental sustainability at the forefront of the project.

The architects chose wood because its production has no waste products and binds CO2. It’s low weight but very strong, and more fire resistant than both steel and concrete due to the fact that 15% of its mass is water. The beams and pillars of the skyscraper are made of solid wood, and each apartment is lined in it for a warm, homey feel.

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The skyscraper has a stepped design at the top, allowing for private rooftop gardens complete with full-sized trees. The lower apartments have glass-covered verandas, and the whole building is powered by rooftop solar panels.  It’ll not only provide eco-friendly residences, but act as a landmark for the city.

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This is just one more example of innovative visions for super-tall wooden structures coming out of the architecture world in recent months. The architecture firm that designed the Willis Tower (formerly Sears Tower) of Chicago plans a 42-story wooden skyscraper, the tallest of its kind, and architect Michael Green has designed a concept for a 30-story tower in Vancouver.

Builders of World’s Tallest Skyscrapers Plan 42-Story Wood High-Rise

timber-towerYet another vision for the future of architecture sees not concrete and steel but wood as a primary sustainable material for even the tallest of skyscrapers. Architecture firm Skidmore, Owings & Merrill (SOM) has embarked on the Timber Tower Research Project, a design for a 42-story tower that would be the tallest structure ever made of wood. It would be constructed using ‘mass timber products’ including cross-laminated timber and mixes of wood species in the mass timbers.

SOM are the builders behind the Willis Tower (formerly Sears Tower) of Chicago, One World Trade Center and other super-tal structures. Their plans would use a small amount of concrete in the form of beams for added support at the most highly stressed locations of the structure: the connecting joints.

According to the architects, “this system plays to the strengths of both materials and allows the engineer to apply sound tall building engineering fundamentals. The result is believed to be an efficient structure that could compete with reinforced concrete and steel while reducing the carbon footprint by 60 to 75%.”

Previously, architect Michael Green produced an instruction manual on wooden skyscrapers to encourage other architects and builders to consider the use of wood more often. A contest called Timber in the City challenges students to use wood as a main material for tall structures, and some multi-story complexes made almost entirely of wood have already started to pop up around the world.