World's tallest wooden building could herald 'age of timber'

Record ID: 275525

  • Title: World's tallest wooden building could herald 'age of timber'
  • Date: 22nd February 2017
  • Summary: BERGEN, NORWAY (FEBRUARY 17, 2017) (REUTERS) "TREE HOUSE" SEEN FROM ACROSS WATER TREE HOUSE SEEN FROM OTHER SIDE ENTRANCE/ TREE HOUSE RESIDENT ROLF EINAR VAAGHEIM ENTERING BUILDING (SOUNDBITE) (English) RESIDENT ROLF EINAR VAAGHEIM, 26, SAYING: "When you're in the apartment you don't realise it's a wood building. Of course there's the wooden beams architectural aspect." EL
  • Embargoed: 8th March 2017 14:06
  • Keywords: timber wood wooden Bergen CLT glulam emissions CO2 The Tree
  • Location: BERGEN, NORWAY
  • City: BERGEN, NORWAY
  • Country: Norway
  • Topics: Science
  • Reuters ID: LVA00264LQ5P7
  • Aspect Ratio: 16:9
  • Story Text: Stronger wooden construction materials are allowing ever taller timber high-rise buildings to be built. The world's tallest is currently the 52.8 metre (173 feet) tall "The Tree" (Treet) in west Norway.
    The 14 storey building overlooking the Norwegian port of Bergen, consists of a glue laminated timber (glulam) load-bearing structure and prefabricated modular flats.
    The modules are stacked four storeys high, with two platforms, on the 4th and 9th floors, being anchored to the glulam frame.
    The building houses 62 apartments with the apartments on the so called "power floors" - the 5th and 10th floors - housing the load bearing structures.
    Resident Einar Vaagheim, 26, who is renting a flat on the 8th floor of the building, said there was not much difference to living in a more conventional building.
    "When you're in the apartment you don't realise it's a wood building," he said.
    Height records are a showcase for what the timber industry hopes will be wider use of wood in all construction, a disruptor to producers of materials such as iron ore and steel that are already struggling with weak prices and over-supply.
    But even backers of innovative wooden materials - such as cross laminated timber (CLT), laminated veneer lumber (LVL) and glulam - say usage is still only a pinprick in the construction market.
    These timber towers may also gain popularity after 200 governments agreed a plan in 2015 to combat climate change. Wood is a natural store of carbon dioxide, the main greenhouse gas.
    Backers of timber towers say they are greener than concrete and steel, whose production emits large amounts of greenhouse gases. Those industries retort that felling trees harms the environment if it causes a loss of forests.
    "It will never totally displace concrete and steel but it's definitely a part in our solution towards our struggle towards a CO2 neutral society. That's for sure and because wood is very nice to work with from an industrial point of view you can make parts in factories around the world, bring them to site and then you build the house like building LEGO. So it's a very efficient way to built it at site," said Ole Kleppe, project manager for the Tree at Bergen property developers BOB. He declined to give costs for The Tree, built beside a high bridge and which won an exemption to the normal Bergen city limit of nine storeys.
    Residents unanimously said family and friends fretted unnecessarily about fire risks and Kleppe said The Tree was the safest building in the city, as far as fire safety was concerned.
    "These columns and these CLT (cross laminated timber) panels they don't burn. They're so thick that they don't burn. In addition, they are painted with fire resistant paint and the house is sprinkled so we have all possible ways to prevent a fire in the house. So actually, this is the safest house in Bergen regarding fire," he said.
    Even wooden buildings have not completely banished steel and concrete. The roof terrace of The Tree, for instance, has a floor of concrete.
    "It was necessary to add weight," said Per Reigstad, of Arctec Architects who led the project. The concrete helps keep the building stable, for instance in high winds or in case of a rare earthquake.
    "Plyscraper" records are falling fast.
    The Tree became the world's tallest wooden home on completion in late 2015, surpassing a block in Melbourne, Australia.
    This September, the title will move to Vancouver, Canada, when students move into a 53-metre 18-storey residence.
    "I think they are beating us by a small amount but in that way these records are meant to be beaten so it can always come back to Norway," said Reigstad.
    But there is fierce competition. Among others, construction began last year on an 84-metre tower in Vienna, due for completion in late 2018 and architects are considering even bigger towers, such as the 300-metre "Toothpick" in London.
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