Work To Start On World's Tallest Wooden House
Instead of concrete jungles could our cities become urban forests of wooden skyscrapers>? Today swapping cement and steel for timber is the vision of a number of environmentally-minded architects who are planning high-rise buildings across the world.
A Norwegian building society will this month start work on the world's tallest wooden apartment block, a 14-story structure which will rise to 49 meters, easily eclipsing the existing record holder in Melbourne, Australia.
'Treet', or The tree, will this year begin to rise up next to the Byfjorden in Central Bergen, after the Bergen and Omegn Building Society (BOB) begins work this month. As reported the Society it had now sold half of the 62 apartments.
Ole Kleppe, who is managing the project for BOB, said that the builders planned to build the apartments around a gigantic timber frame formed of metre-thick columns of wooden 'glulam'.
"The news is that we are combining load-bearing structures of glulam with apartments based on modules," he explained.
"All other future high-rise timber projects of more than ten stories around the world today are somehow based on a concrete, steel or composite core."
Once the modules are fixed in place early next year, the entire building will be wrapped in a glass and metal facade to protect the wooden structures from the notoriously wet Bergen climate.
"The project is a pilot project to show how we can build high-rise timber projects that are sustainable," he said. "This project will bind approximately one thousand tons of CO2 in the wooden constructions -- an important contribution to reducing emissions of CO2."
Recently a Yale University - led study has found that using more wood and less steel and concrete in building and bridge construction would substantially reduce global carbon dioxide emissions and fossil fuel consumption despite an established forest conservation theory.
Forte, in Melbourne, became the world's tallest timber frame apartment building at 32 meters, when it was completed at the end of 2012.
In 2012 Architect Michael Green, one of three principals at McFarlane Green Biggar Architecture + Design (MGB), also announced about plans to build a 30-story wooden skyscraper in Vancouver.
A Norwegian building society will this month start work on the world's tallest wooden apartment block, a 14-story structure which will rise to 49 meters, easily eclipsing the existing record holder in Melbourne, Australia.
'Treet', or The tree, will this year begin to rise up next to the Byfjorden in Central Bergen, after the Bergen and Omegn Building Society (BOB) begins work this month. As reported the Society it had now sold half of the 62 apartments.
Ole Kleppe, who is managing the project for BOB, said that the builders planned to build the apartments around a gigantic timber frame formed of metre-thick columns of wooden 'glulam'.
"The news is that we are combining load-bearing structures of glulam with apartments based on modules," he explained.
"All other future high-rise timber projects of more than ten stories around the world today are somehow based on a concrete, steel or composite core."
Once the modules are fixed in place early next year, the entire building will be wrapped in a glass and metal facade to protect the wooden structures from the notoriously wet Bergen climate.
"The project is a pilot project to show how we can build high-rise timber projects that are sustainable," he said. "This project will bind approximately one thousand tons of CO2 in the wooden constructions -- an important contribution to reducing emissions of CO2."
Recently a Yale University - led study has found that using more wood and less steel and concrete in building and bridge construction would substantially reduce global carbon dioxide emissions and fossil fuel consumption despite an established forest conservation theory.
Forte, in Melbourne, became the world's tallest timber frame apartment building at 32 meters, when it was completed at the end of 2012.
In 2012 Architect Michael Green, one of three principals at McFarlane Green Biggar Architecture + Design (MGB), also announced about plans to build a 30-story wooden skyscraper in Vancouver.
