Text description provided by the architects We have all the responsibility to find new ways of thinking Mjøstårnet is the first time in history that something like this has been constructed on this scale the first time in history that the materials and the expertise have been sourced locally Our client says that standing on top of the viewing platform of Mjøstårnet you can “actually see” where the timber comes from and where it was processed And that’s part of our sustainable movement being put into practice we began to sketch out the project in early 2015 © Øystein ElgsaasMjøstårnet is made from about 3 500m3 of timber or about 14 000 threes. Healthy and sustainable forestry is therefore very important if a project like Mjøstårnet and other timber buildings is to succeed. When you are passing by on the highway you only see the building up close for some seconds and in those seconds, you should be convinced that this is a timber building © Øystein ElgsaasMjøstårnet is a modern mixed-use tower, with facilities that the residents, locals, and visitors can exploit. The tower consists of 18 stories with different programs. The official architectural height verified by the CTBUH is 85,4 meters. Each floor is about 640 m2. The total program for the tower is about 10 500m2 with an additional 4 500m2 public bath.  © Øystein ElgsaasThe ground floor is public, with lobby, reception and restaurant. The new building is complemented by a public swimming pool with two 25 meters length pools in the low-rise building adjacent to the tower. © Øystein ElgsaasAbove the entrance story are building services and conference floors. Five office stories and a four-story hotel with 72 rooms. Thirty-three residential units with balconies overlooking the lake are on floors 12-16 The top two floors are divided into three further residential units, an exhibition room and a public viewing terrace on both the 18th and 19th floor.  © WoodifyWe think it's exciting to see that wood construction has gained a new renaissance and we are proud to be able to help develop wood architecture to new heights Mjøstårnet is not the blueprint of a tall timber building but a contributor to further sustainable development the most important aspect of this building is to show that it is possible to build large You'll now receive updates based on what you follow Personalize your stream and start following your favorite authors If you have done all of this and still can't find the email rises two hundred and eighty feet—about the height of the Flatiron Building.Photographs by Paul S Amundsen for The New YorkerSave this storySave this storySave this storySave this storyBrumunddal a small municipality on the northeastern shore of Lake Mjøsa has for most of its history had little to recommend it to the passing visitor There are no picturesque streets with cafés and boutiques as there are in the ski resort of Lillehammer and the waterfront is cut off by a highway was until recently best known to Norwegians for a series of attacks on immigrant residents three decades ago which led to street clashes between anti-racism protesters and supporters of the far right Brumunddal has achieved a more welcome identity: as the site of Mjøstårnet the tallest all-timber building in the world topped out at just over three hundred feet Like the Flatiron Building—one of the earliest steel-frame skyscrapers which defied public skepticism about the sturdiness of a building that tapers to the extreme angle of about twenty-five degrees—Mjøstårnet is an audacious gesture and a proof of concept It depends for its strength and stability not on steel and concrete but on giant wooden beams of glulam—short for “glued laminated timber”—an engineered product in which pieces of lumber are bound together with water-resistant adhesives Glulam is manufactured at industrial scale from the spruce and pine forests that cover about a third of Norway’s landmass from which the timber for Mjøstårnet was harvested I went to see the building in mid-December arriving by a train from Oslo that passed through farmland and woodland before reaching the edge of Lake Mjøsa The steely waters lapped a shoreline of charcoal-colored rock on which traces of the previous weekend’s snow remained The journey north from the capital takes about an hour and a half but I didn’t need a watch to tell me when I had arrived at Brumunddal—the incongruous sight of a tower block rising from the water’s edge was a sufficient signpost I wheeled my suitcase for fifteen minutes across town—past the parking lot of the local McDonald’s and across the highway resembling from a distance a box of matches there was an angled wooden canopy that might have been fashioned from a handful of matches taken from the box’s drawer The timber for Mjøstårnet was harvested from the forests that blanket about a third of Norway’s landmass.The tower is flanked by two other all-timber structures: on one side a low building that houses the municipal swimming pool; on the other Some low-rise wooden apartment buildings edge the lake Mjøstårnet’s sheer façade is clad in panels of orange-brown knotty timber whose dark vertical lines of wood grain lure the eye upward an English-language sign attests that a group called the Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat has certified the tower’s record-breaking status I smelled the enticing scent of pine—though its source [Support The New Yorker’s award-winning journalism. Subscribe today »] The material from which the tower had been built was evident in the airy ground-floor lobby and restaurant where wooden dining tables and chairs were arrayed on bare wooden floorboards wooden pendant lampshades dangled on long cords and large bamboo palms in pots were clustered at the base of a curved wooden staircase that rose to a mezzanine as well as angled braces cutting across the restaurant’s walls of windows the thickest of which were almost five feet by two feet I noticed that the elevator shaft was built from similar chunky blocks I had been assigned a corner room with two huge picture windows where the view was obscured by fog; the other faced southeast offering a painterly sweep of gray skies and water the shoreline clustered with denuded deciduous birches and evergreen spruces An enormous glulam pillar between the windows held up the corner of the building Its surface had been treated with a translucent white-tinted wax but otherwise it was recognizably derived from the forests through which I’d passed on the journey from Oslo I rapped my knuckles on the glulam: it was smooth and much less cold than a metal pillar would have been I put my bag down on a blond-wood coffee table by the window its comfortable backrest fashioned from bent-wood strips Brumunddal enjoys less than six hours of daylight; had I sat there long enough I could have watched the sun rise and set with only the barest swivel to adjust my line of sight tasteful furnishings—a narrow blond-wood desk; a double bed made up with white linens and a crimson blanket—it had the virtuous feel of a spa given the town’s lack of other attractions Between the heft of the wooden building and the evanescence of the fog encircling it the atmosphere was seductively calming—as long as my mind did not linger on the metaphor of the matchbox “Please fall asleep so I can go to bed and look at photos of you being quiet.”Cartoon by Adam SacksCopy link to cartoonCopy link to cartoonLink copied Engineered wood products such as glulam and cross-laminated timber—a close relative in which flat boards are glued in perpendicular layers—offer an alternative model for the construction industry retain carbon dioxide captured from the atmosphere One cubic metre of glulam timber stores about seven hundred kilograms of carbon dioxide About eighteen thousand trees were required to produce the wood products used in the construction of Mjøstårnet and the adjoining pool those trees sequester more than two thousand tons of carbon dioxide (Norwegian law requires harvested acres to be replanted.) when a twenty-four-story housing block burned like a terrible beacon over West London The fire was exacerbated by the building’s cladding which was made not from timber but from aluminum and highly flammable polyethylene cities have restricted the use of timber in buildings after deadly conflagrations after the Great Fire of London destroyed in excess of thirteen thousand houses—and more than eighty churches—the city passed legislation mandating construction in brick or stone In the wake of the Great Chicago Fire of 1871 in which more than seventeen thousand buildings were destroyed and nearly a hundred thousand people left homeless local officials expanded requirements to use fireproof materials in the downtown area timber structures were outlawed in urban contexts in 1904 after the town of Ålesund was ravaged by fire Architects and engineers who specialize in mass-timber buildings say that fears of fire are misplaced the contractor responsible for the wooden complex in Brumunddal and he told me that some locals initially referred to Mjøstårnet as “the world’s biggest torch.” Lunke explained that the kind of laminated wooden blocks used in Mjøstårnet exceed modern fire standards Unlike wood planks or beams cut from individual trees the massive blocks of engineered timber used in large-scale construction projects do not burn through: they char only on the surface much the way a large log placed in a fireplace will the next morning be blackened but not incinerated that’s what has been demonstrated in tests: Lunke like others in the industry with whom I spoke could not cite any fires in the real world which involved mass-timber buildings A recent architectural competition in Oslo provided an oblique endorsement of the material’s safety: the city’s fire department elicited proposals for a new station and elected a firm that had designed a two-story structure built from wood and clad in panels of scorched timber Engineering wood to make it stronger and more adaptable is not a recent innovation: plywood in which thin strips of lumber are glued together with the grain running in alternating directions has been used as a building material since the early twentieth century are manufactured according to similar principles Large planks of sawn timber are dried in a kiln—a process that can take weeks—then glued together and compressed Computer imaging allows pieces of engineered wood to be cut precisely to size before they’re transported to a building site producing less waste than conventional construction methods so less noise is generated by the raising of a timber building.) Because building with glulam and cross-laminated timber is still in its infancy it can be more expensive than conventional construction: the Mjøstårnet development cost approximately a hundred and thirteen million dollars about eleven per cent more than an equivalent development would have cost in concrete and steel Although some regions of the world have plentiful forests of harvestable Canada—others lack a ready supply of wood to turn into engineered timber Despite Dubai’s appetite for architectural innovation it wouldn’t be a sensible location for a timber tower: the ecological cost of shipping the wood would cancel out its green credentials Building towers with wood poses certain design challenges: the supporting columns in a timber office tower must be thicker than those in steel-and-concrete towers causing precious metres of rentable floor space to be lost The inherent lightness of wood can also prove tricky for architects The engineers of Mjøstårnet determined that the upper levels needed to be equipped with concrete floors to weigh the tower down the Norwegian company that provided the timber elements for Mjøstårnet although the tower would have been structurally sound the wind that blows off the lake would have caused it to sway so much that some occupants would have become nauseated An internal-timber structure is to be wrapped with a curvy exoskeleton of steel and glass; solar panels will adorn the façade and indoor terraces will have naturally ventilated gardens told me that he saw no reason that wooden buildings should look markedly different from those made of steel and concrete: rather a design should be suited to its particular setting but I believe that should not be the rule—we need more colors in our environment and not only brown or gray façades,” he told me if we look at some concepts for new wooden designs you can show the wooden construction inside and make passersby understand that it is a wooden building.” Many wooden buildings evoke “something growing up from the ground—rooted in the earth and reaching for the skies “could generate an architectural language for timber that we have never seen before.” an architecture firm that works exclusively in timber Its offices are on the ground floor of a nineteenth-century stone building tabletops showcase scale models of prospective buildings—with flawless concrete contours rendered in paper and tiny figurines walking across a paper plaza But the office of Oslotre’s founding partner displays an enormous chunk of wood: two precisely cut pieces of cross-laminated timber that were slotted together at a right angle rather than the spruce from which the cross-laminated timber was fashioned The wood for the joined blocks had been dried down to a moisture content of twelve per cent to match the humidity of the air in the office: if the levels are not calibrated The beech for the dowel had been dried down to six per cent After it was introduced into a hole bored through the cross-laminated timber the dowel absorbed atmospheric moisture and expanded creating a tight fit that obviated the need for metal screws Oslotre had been experimenting with it while designing an office building that should be completed by the end of the year “We can see this technology in Japanese and Chinese architecture that goes back hundreds of years but we are also relying on more modern calculations,” he told me Tycho took me to see Valle Wood a seven-story timber office building in Oslo that Oslotre had worked on; it opened in 2019 in a development adjacent to a soccer stadium and when viewed from a remove the building’s cladding—warm reddish-brown wood—looked like rusted steel though up close I could see that thin horizontal strips of pine had been arranged in angled modernist patterns The exterior was naturally water-resistant The cladding will turn gray with time; the south side will transform more quickly than the north The tower’s base was occupied by a cafeteria and floor-to-ceiling windows partly obscured by massive trusses made with blocks of glulam I could see a wooden-architecture vernacular emerging: airy spaces formed by pale wood beams and columns that had visibly been slotted and joined together The wooden surfaces had been treated only minimally to prevent the kind of yellowing that Norwegians associate with old-timey country cabins—the “Norwegian wood” of the Beatles song the palette was a globally fashionable greige and cream was responsible for Mjøstårnet says that many wooden buildings evoke “something growing up from the ground—rooted in the earth and reaching for the skies like a tree.”At a timber music school that had just opened in the town of Rakkestad the exterior cladding still had the scent of the sawmill.Tycho also showed me around some co-working spaces at Valle Wood and cited an Austrian study indicating that schoolchildren who attend class in a room with wooden walls and furniture have lower heart rates than those who occupy conventional classrooms (Such studies tend to be underwritten by the forestry or the lumber industry although that does not invalidate their claims.) The stairwells had been equipped with durable flooring made from wood blocks cut against the grain so that tree rings formed beautiful patterns underfoot Tycho flinched with annoyance at a wall that had been painted black; along the seams the pallor of the original timber had become exposed “We tried to tell the interior architects that if it is going to be painted black it needs to be done in the wintertime!” he said and the wood is always adapting to the climate it’s in It shrinks.” Cracks in the beams had similarly been caused by seasonal changes the use of wood walls helps regulate the level of moisture indoors reducing the need for mechanically balanced ventilation we drove to one of Oslotre’s current projects: two private homes that were nearing completion in what had once been the yard of a larger property were perched on a hillside with near-flat roofs and walls of windows opening onto outdoor living areas; Tycho assured me that on fog-free days the houses had views overlooking both forests and a fjord Tycho showed me a wall panel that came with a hole for electrical cables already cut in its predetermined spot: very little drilling had to be done on site Our final visit was to a timber music school that had opened only weeks earlier Much of the formative work of Oslotre’s practice was in designing and building wooden public schools Tycho not only believed that timber interiors improved the well-being of students and staff; his designs also provided a way of using up an excess of available timber in Norway Despite the country’s reputation for being blanketed with forests Norway has not always been as densely tree-covered as it is now From the nineteenth century until the middle of the twentieth century the country’s forests were severely degraded its trees having been chopped down and used in the boatbuilding and mining industries or exported as construction material—often to the U.K. Today’s extensive forestation is the result of a program instituted by the Norwegian government after the Second World War in which schoolchildren planted trees as part of their curriculum would spur economic growth through the expansion of wood-based industries starting at the end of the nineteen-sixties a more lucrative natural resource presented itself when giant oil deposits were identified beneath the North Sea That discovery meant that Norway’s forests grew to an unplanned maturity Spruce and pine planted in the immediate postwar years are now ripe for industrial use—all the more reason to harvest them as timber rather than allowing them to die and decay releasing the gas back into the atmosphere Norway’s nineteenth-century experience demonstrated the dangers of deforestation and a related objection is sometimes mounted against using timber in large-scale construction projects: why cut down a healthy tree to sequester carbon in a building when the tree is doing a perfectly good job of sequestering carbon in the forest Advocates of timber-based architecture stress that the industry’s viability depends on sustainable forestry methods given the environmental damage caused by conventional construction methods we have no choice but to explore alternative materials including wood and other bio-based products can be used as insulation.) As Tycho drove us through the Norwegian countryside the building industry has to do things differently we will have other technologies for carbon sequestration But at the moment we don’t do enough fast enough.” We arrived at the music school as daylight was fading the two-story building was warmly lit from inside Rain and snow had left damp patches on the exterior cladding taking evident pleasure in his new professional home a terrazzo floor and heavy burnt-umber curtains fit harmoniously with the wood walls and ceiling; in a small practice studio the bars of a wooden xylophone were visually echoed by the strips of wood covering the walls and the ceiling When we walked into a loftlike practice-and-performance studio it felt almost as if we were inside a musical instrument ourselves there had been a slight problem with the acoustics and the sound bounced off the walls with an ugly Tycho looked closely at the wall: it appeared that someone had forgotten to place a layer of sound-absorbing material behind the wood panelling an all-timber building is just like a conventional one: the construction process is likely to include a few missteps I slept well in my corner hotel room at Mjøstårnet though I cannot report any measurable lowering of my heart rate from one night’s exposure to its wooden components attest to the resonance of its wood walls; when a chiming iPhone alarm went off in a neighboring room at 7 a.m. it was so loud that I groggily reached for my own phone I had coffee in the hotel restaurant with Arthur Buchardt the developer behind the building of Mjøstårnet He said that timber architects will have to learn how to better quell the sound-transmitting qualities of wood interior walls had been covered with painted plasterboard for sound insulation—resulting in an unfortunate reduction of the promised health-giving benefits of exposed wood in Vienna—the architect stretched the top of Mjøstårnet by a further four or five metres The building showed what the future of sustainable architecture might look like “All the politicians talk about ‘green change’—we must do something else that must be environmentally friendly I thought I could build something like this assessments of the construction cost of a building do not generally take carbon emissions into account Buchardt feels that such a penalty is inevitable If developers have to weigh the environmental costs of building as a matter of hard cash engineered timber will start to look particularly appealing Buchardt and I rode the elevator to the top of Mjøstårnet where there is a viewing platform beneath the wood frame that tops the building though it would be a foolish gardener who tried to trail ivy along its massive and had entertained visions of rustic Scandi outdoor seating—accessorized and equipped with a cabin serving gløgg in turned-wood mugs Such notions swiftly evaporated as I climbed an icy metal staircase to the upper terrace which was blasted by a chill wind and covered with crunchy remnants of the most recent snowfall the pillars and struts of the pergola looked like the masts of a gigantic ship—their edges rounded to diminish the force of winds that can pummel the tower a timber office tower that opened in Oslo in 2019 Its design—airy spaces formed by pale wood beams; columns that have been visibly slotted and joined together—suggests an emerging wooden-architecture vernacular.Another late revision to the building’s blueprints was a penthouse apartment for Buchardt Some packing boxes remained by the front door but the place was well on its way to being a spectacular cabin in the sky with an elegant dove-gray couch positioned with a view across the lake and a gas fireplace in a pillar of gray stone Buchardt sat in an armchair and explained that he travels a hundred days out of the year and this seemed a congenial place in which to do so and low sunlight bounced off the lake and filled the room with replenishing warmth Feeling that it would be hard not to have one’s spirits lifted by these surroundings I asked Buchardt if he believed that being in a wood environment was conducive to better mental health and the surfaces are not so hard,” he replied “Most of us already live in wooden buildings—only not so tall.” Pulling out his phone he showed me photographs of one of his other homes: a log cottage in Hafjell where the Olympic competition for slalom skiing was held in 1994 looked like a very pleasant place in which to spend one’s retirement “The building is twenty years old,” he said “But the timber is two hundred years old.” I went to see a group of buildings made from even older timber a hundred and sixty historical buildings from around Norway have been gathered in hilly and there were few other visitors—it was too late in the season for school groups each dedicated to a different geographical part of the country There was a schoolhouse with a turf roof from western Norway and wooden benches and desks that had been installed with no thought of their effect on the students’ well-being A farmhouse from Telemark had survived from the first half of the eighteenth century The largest room was illuminated by leaded windows and furnished with a long dining table that could easily have seated twenty I came across a storehouse that consisted of a turf-roofed cabin raised up on a log base though it had presumably stood without collapsing since it was first constructed the skills required to build enduring buildings with wood—taking into account how the substance was affected by moisture and temperature and how it can be bent and torqued to meet different needs—were common The most prized building in the museum is a church that originated in the village of Gol It was acquired in the late eighteen-hundreds by the Society for the Preservation of Ancient Norwegian Monuments whose collection of antique Norwegian buildings forms the basis of the museum’s holdings although it has repeatedly been restored since then it preserves the characteristics of what is known as stave construction: an all-wood method of building in which load-bearing posts allowed for the raising of towering structures whose walls were made of vertical boards and were often decorated with fantastically shaped carvings They used to be widespread in northern Europe the pine-tar-treated timbers of the façade looked stark and black—almost threatening covered gallery that surrounded the church’s core I could hear my footfall ringing on the plank flooring with a familiar The main doorway was richly carved with interlocking floral patterns but when I peered inside I could see—warmly illuminated by concealed electric lighting—religious paintings that dated from the mid-seventeenth century Daylight fell on the polished floorboards from concealed peepholes in the highest parts of the roof the interior of the church seemed cozy and welcoming the kind of space that promises to hold you safe turning around to look at the building again from a distance It was an extraordinary architectural gesture: rising on the hilltop like a ship lifted by waves towering above the clusters of pine trees surrounding it this must have been the tallest building that anyone who laid eyes on it had ever seen A previous version of this article misstated the date of a report by Chatham House A long-ago crime, suddenly remembered A limousine driver watches her passengers transform The day Muhammad Ali punched me What is it like to be keenly intelligent but deeply alienated from simple emotions? Temple Grandin knows The harsh realm of “gentle parenting.”  Retirement the Margaritaville way Fiction by F. Scott Fitzgerald: “Thank You for the Light.”  Sign up for our daily newsletter to receive the best stories from The New Yorker. Mjøsa Tower in the Norwegian town of Brumunddal will be the world’s tallest wooden building is an example of how wood can be substituted for concrete which is considerably heavier and less environmentally friendly The building will stand over 80 metres tall Wooden buildings are the solution to the high demand for new housing and offices Using wood as the main building material produces lightweight and cost-effective buildings that are quick to build and have minimal environmental impact This also applies to load-bearing elements This high-rise is being built using glulam, CLT, and Metsä Wood’s Kerto® LVL (laminated veneer lumber) To ensure the required load-bearing capacity cross-bonded veneer panels called Kerto-Q LVL will be used for the flooring between the storeys The panels are extremely strong and durable Wood is an environmentally friendly building material it is renewable and abundantly available in the Nordic countries The material absorbs more carbon dioxide as the tree grows than the quantities emitted in the manufacture of this construction material The wood’s light weight means less transportation and lighter foundations of the kind required for concrete buildings Using wood as the main construction material is key to shortening the construction time and Modern technology enables us to prefabricate all components in a factory with a very high degree of precision wood makes it possible for construction time to be slashed by half it’s relatively easy to make adjustments or corrections on-site which consist of massive beams with Kerto panels on top just 15 kilometres from the construction site that’s a huge advantage if you have something that needs to be adjusted at the factory The work is progressing at the rate of one storey a week which has shortened our construction time by approximately 35 to 40 per cent compared to using cast-in-situ concrete And since the wooden components are so lightweight we don’t need the machinery to be as heavy,” says Rune Abrahamsen a general subcontractor in the Mjøsa Tower project Fire safety is not a weak point in the wooden Mjøsa Tower Untreated solid wood creates its own fire-resistant surface because the outermost layer chars when exposed to fire protecting against further fire damage.  wood is a fireproof material despite the commonly held belief that it isn’t “Fire safety rules state that buildings must be able to withstand a full fire for at least two hours without collapsing When you have a building made of steel and concrete the steel melts and the building collapses,” says Erik Tveit the general contractor for the site.  concrete will be used between the floors of the Tower’s top seven storeys Using concrete has nothing to do with the load-bearing capacity There's a simpler explanation: the swaying that increases the higher you get in a building built of wood or concrete The weight of the concrete in the upper storeys makes the swaying slower and not as readily perceivable Metsä Wood is supplying Kerto LVL to Moelven Limtre AS which is constructing the wooden frame for the general contractor HENT Images: https://databank.metsagroup.com/l/6-hkWtqLmM5Z www.metsawood.com Metsä Wood provides competitive and environmentally friendly wood products for construction industrial customers and distributor partners We manufacture products from northern wood a sustainable raw material of premium quality 10-01-2018DESIGN a project that aims to become the tallest timber building in the world BY Jesus Diaz Over the past few years, timber has become a more widely used material in tall buildings–and from Canada to Japan architects are pushing the material further and further into the sky an 18-story project being built in Brumunddal is the latest all-wood high-rise to compete for the record of world’s tallest In a five-part micro-documentary produced by Moelven the Scandinavian construction company behind the project the structure is a fascinating piece of engineering for its anti-fire features alone Norway had legally prohibited large timber buildings over three stories after a terrible fire consumed the city of Ålesund in the early 1900s Yet the construction company claims its building is one of the safest in Norway, thanks to the use of glulam–or glued laminated timber. According to Even Andersen a fire expert for the engineering consultancy firm Sweco Norge AS that oversaw the project They develop a lawyer of charcoal that stops the fire “The glulam structures have such huge dimensions that they retain their load-bearing ability in the event of a burnout fire,” he writes since we’ve seen much taller skyscrapers made of fire-resistant materials collapse in the past; let’s hope this feature is never tested in real life.) The company is also taking an unusual approach to the building’s construction, which will happen in five stages without any external scaffolding–just one large crane and internal scaffolding The company assembles the glulam structural beams and columns on the ground the building systems–like electrical and plumbing–are added to finish each floor Once the company has finished this process for four floors The building will reach completion in the spring of 2019. If all goes as planned, it will beat out the current holder of the title, the 173-foot timber dorm in Vancouver The final deadline for Fast Company’s Brands That Matter Awards is Friday, May 30, at 11:59 p.m. PT. Apply today. Fast Company & Inc © 2025 Mansueto Ventures Fastcompany.com adheres to NewsGuard’s nine standards of credibility and transparency. Learn More a town of 10,000 people on the shore of Norway’s biggest lake Its crime-ridden high street illustrated how not to design a town centre In the 1990s a third of all racist attacks in Norway But locals hope that architects will soon have a better excuse to visit In March the world’s tallest wooden skyscraper This article appeared in the International section of the print edition under the headline “Home truths about climate change” Discover stories from this section and more in the list of contents It will galvanise international co-operation over writing rules for the ocean bed The once-banned weapons are making a comeback to deter Russia Russia’s European neighbours hate landmines. They are installing them anyway Archive TECHNOLOGY These two distinct buildings share a common feature: both are constructed entirely of wood, an architectural and design choice that makes them two of the world’s most sustainable civil infrastructures. In their respective uses of materials and energy systems they’ve both been designed to reduce all forms of atmospheric pollution The vegetation-rich forests of southeast Norway stretch on for ages The wood used to build Mjøstårnet – currently the world’s tallest wooden building – was sourced from these very forests a stone’s throw from the town of Brumunddal the small town of Brumunddal is where this record-breaking skyscraper first took shape The concept for it was a bona fide “vertical district.” “District” is fitting: the skyscraper contains a hotel Given its location on the shores of Lake Mjosa Mjøstårnet was designed to seamlessly integrate with nature translates literally as “the tower of Lake Mjosa”) That integration was clear early in the planning stages: the building was designed to take shape over 18 floors along an 11,300 square metre area (37,073 square feet) while maintaining a frame made entirely of spruce wood and organic materials It’s not just the wood that’s “green”: alongside the building’s dominant material its energy supply and internal water recycling system have both been designed to be green for every tree cut down to construct the building’s frame when architects Oskar Norelius and Robert Schmitz first presented their plans for the Sara Kulturhus Few believed it was possible to build a skyscraper with the innovative features and control over CO2 emissions that they were proposing and the mission was accomplished just a few weeks ago when the Sara Kulturhus was inaugurated in Skellefteå One of the world’s tallest wooden skyscrapers 20-story building hosts a cultural center and hotel the building’s wood was sourced from nearby forests and was also used to build a 1,200-seat concert hall were instead built using prefabricated wooden modules But the building has one feature that bests all others and the post-construction reforestation operations in place the Sara Kulturhus is not just carbon-neutral Sustainable construction has made great strides in recent years Before Scandinavian supremacy took hold in the sector Austria ranked high for its efforts with the Viennese HoHo tower built with a combination of wood and concrete 53-meter (174-foot) “bio building” of Brock Commons previously the tallest wooden building in the world before Mjøstårnet came on the scene But Japan is primed to best all these examples of sustainable construction when it completes W350 a 350-metre (1148-foot) tower made entirely of wood W350 will bring about a real test and perhaps set a new blueprint for wood as an alternative, more sustainable material for similarly ambitious architectural projects. 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For further information please refer to our Privacy & Cookie Policy here These cookies are required to use the key functions of this website These cookies are used exclusively by the Company and are therefore first party cookies They are saved on the User's computer only during the current browser session The technical cookies also include those used to statistically analyze accesses or visits to the Site which exclusively pursue statistical purposes (but not marketing or profiling) and collect information in the form aggregated without the possibility of tracing the identification of the individual user the User may also receive cookies from different sites or web servers on his terminal This happens because the Site may contain elements such as specific links to web pages of other domains that reside on servers other than the one on which the requested page is located This website uses cookies so that we can provide you with the best user experience possible Cookie information is stored in your browser and performs functions such as recognising you when you return to our website and helping our team to understand which sections of the website you find most interesting and useful Strictly Necessary Cookie should be enabled at all times so that we can save your preferences for cookie settings we will not be able to save your preferences This means that every time you visit this website you will need to enable or disable cookies again Follow the stories of We Build Value and stay up to date on the magazine’s news 2023: Was the only player on the team to appear in all 18 games notching 17 starts … Had a pair of assists and a goal … Eight of his 16 shots arrived on frame … Had an assist against St including seven shutout wins … Played eight games of full time (90+ minutes) There are no statistics available for this player Thanks for visiting The use of software that blocks ads hinders our ability to serve you the content you came here to enjoy We ask that you consider turning off your ad blocker so we can deliver you the best experience possible while you are here Eos and you’ll find what could become the next big eco-friendly construction material: wood scientists report that a switch to wooden buildings could house a rising world population while keeping billions of tons of carbon out of the atmosphere—provided that the construction industry takes heed “It’s just a really well put together argument for why we need more carbon storage,” said Joseph Gutierrez a geoscience educator at California State University “We need to change how we’re doing…construction and building management.” Steel and concrete remain go-to materials for constructing new homes and commercial buildings But although these materials are sturdy and durable their manufacture and transport spew carbon into the atmosphere Get the most fascinating science news stories of the week in your inbox every Friday “Both of these materials will basically never become zero carbon,” said Galina Churkina the study’s lead author and an environmental scientist at Germany’s Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research Churkina turned to one of the world’s oldest construction materials: wood Carbon sequestration has only recently become a hot topic in climate change discussions but microbes mastered carbon capture—photosynthesis—more than 3 billion years ago with the first woody plants developing more than 300 million years ago Churkina worked with a team of architects and scientists to calculate the benefits of using wood to build urban mid-rise buildings from 2020 to 2050 The team forecast four different scenarios dubbed “business as usual,” 99.5% of new buildings would be built with steel and concrete or 90% of new buildings would be made from wood The researchers estimate that the 90% scenario would keep up to 20 billion tons of carbon out of the atmosphere over the next 30 years That value decreases to a maximum of 11 billion tons in the 50% scenario and 2.3 billion tons in the 10% scenario scientists estimate that global carbon emissions reached around 37 billion tons in 2018 These savings stem from the fact that carbon makes up half the dry weight of wood and concrete takes hundreds of years to store carbon The future carbon savings of wooden buildings look promising but raise important questions. For one, wouldn’t wooden buildings burn? Researchers point out that although small wooden planks are flammable, large sections can be remarkably fire resistant its outer layer chars; this charred surface protects the core by blocking heat and oxygen There was much more forest regrowth than was removed.” Another potential issue is whether a shift to wooden buildings would deplete the world’s forests the researchers evaluated both future projections and past data Models forecasting future levels of forest growth showed that forests should be able to support even the 90% wooden building scenario And when the scientists reviewed wood harvest data from 65 countries between 1990 and 2010 they found that two thirds of the countries were harvesting less wood than their forests were growing back It’s a bit of a surprise in a way,” Churkina said “There was much more forest regrowth than was removed.” the next big challenge will be convincing the construction industry and regulators that a wooden future is as economical as it is environmentally friendly That will require changing building codes and retraining an industry that has long favored concrete and steel—no easy task “I think it’s going to be a tough sell and a tough transition to make but hopefully [we can] at least get close to the 10% or 50% [scenarios],” Gutierrez said “If you can’t convince administrations and construction companies to buy into these things The new study was published in Nature Sustainability in January 2020 —Jonathan Wosen ([email protected]; @JonathanWosen) Science Communication Program Graduate Student Wosen, J. (2020), Wooden buildings could house the carbon of the 21st century, Eos, 101, https://doi.org/10.1029/2020EO139192 The Mjostarnet or Mjosa Tower is the world’s tallest timber building Mjosa Tower (Mjostarnet) is an 85.4m-tall mixed-use timber building in Brumunddal It is the third-tallest building in the country and recognised as the world’s tallest timber tower by the Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat the wooden skyscraper is named after the country’s biggest inland lake Earthworks for the building commenced in April 2017, while the installation of timber structures began in September 2017 The structural topping-out ceremony was held in September 2018 and the building was officially opened in March 2019 The Mjosa Tower is located in the small town of Brumunddal on the riverbank of Lake Mjosa a short drive north of the Norwegian capital Mjosa Tower has 18 storeys with a combined floor area of approximately 11,300m² It consists of 33 apartments ranging between 50m² and 180m² in size while the second storey comprises rentable meeting rooms and technical facilities The offices are spread across floors three to seven while the four floors above them incorporate 18 hotel rooms each The Mjostarnet Tower incorporates residential apartments from the 12th to the 16th floors There are a total of 33 apartments within the tower The 17th storey is reserved for two of the remaining three apartments The top floor has one penthouse apartment and a public-viewing terrace The project also included the development of a 4,900m² swimming hall with two 25m-long pools Sustainable wooden materials are used in the construction of both the structure and facade of the Mjostarnet skyscraper The building contains 2,600m³ of timber structures The decks on floors two to 11 are made of prefabricated wood components while the decks on the next seven floors are built using 300mm concrete to improve the strength of the building The intermediate flooring between all the levels is built using light environment-friendly Kerto-Q LVL (laminated veneer lumber) cross-bonded veneer panels which gives improved load-bearing capacity beams and diagonals of the building are formed by planing and gluing large-scale glued laminated timber (glulam) that is pliable and fire-resistant Cross-laminated timber (CLT) material was used for the inner walls The envelope of the building is formed by integrating large Large-scale glulam trusses are arranged along the facades to withstand loads Steel plates and dowels are used to connect all glulam elements of the tower Timber offers excellent insulation properties contributing to energy efficiency in the building The natural thermal properties of wood help regulate temperature and reduce the need for excessive heating or cooling resulting in lower energy consumption and reduced environmental impact Designed in accordance with Eurocode 5 timber design standards the Mjostarnet wooden tower can withstand extensive fire An upscale sprinkler system capable of holding a greater volume of water is installed to further increase the fire safety in the building All the facilities in the tower are equipped with separate fire safety systems to control the spread of fire horizontally and vertically The outer wall elements are designed to prevent the spread of fire via the facade HENT was appointed as the turnkey contractor for the project under a Nkr500m ($57m) contract with AB Invest and cross-laminated timber structures for the wooden building under a Nkr47m ($5.37m) subcontract awarded by HENT while Sweco Norge provided consulting services in fire engineering SSAB supplied RD piles for the building while Hallingdal Bergboring carried out the installation of pile foundations The facade was developed by Ringsaker Takelementer Kerto® LVL used in the building’s flooring was produced by Metsa Wood while the CLT was produced by Stora Enso and wooden cladding was supplied by Woodify Give your business an edge with our leading industry insights View all newsletters from across the GlobalData Media network Connecting decision makers to a dynamic network of information Bloomberg quickly and accurately delivers business and financial information As a town of fewer than 10,000, Brumunddal’s biggest claim to fame for years was that it was home to the woman who created Grandiosa frozen pizzas it is known for something even more grandiose: The world’s tallest timber structure Norway–The Mjösa Tower was officially opened this month taking over the title of the world’s tallest wooden building light and green Kerto® LVL (laminated veneer lumber) products were used in the intermediate floor elements of the building The Mjösa Tower symbolises environmentally friendly thinking in construction and it is proof that tall buildings can be built using wood The design assignment of creating such a tall wooden building was a positive challenge for Øystein Elgsaas “We want to inspire others to build the same way,” says Elgsaas The structure is similar to conventional buildings but the dimensions of the elements are much larger than usual Both the structure and facade of the Mjösa Tower are made of wood The load-bearing structure consists of glulam columns The first ten floors are made of prefabricated wooden elements The decks on the upper floors are made of concrete to restrain the building and keep it from swaying Kerto LVL has been used as part of the floor elements manufactured by Moelven Limtre “As a glulam manufacturer we strive to use our own materials to the largest possible extent Kerto LVL is a superior material for the top plate and end beams,” says Rune Abrahamsen “Kerto LVL is a lightweight and very straight material thus it guarantees production without any delays The quality of the product is very good,” Abrahamsen continues Metsä Wood and Moelven have cooperated for years Abrahamsen appreciates both the quality and FSC certification of the raw material “Kerto LVL helped us to make Mjösa Tower as sustainable as possible,” says Abrahamsen and looks forward to new high-rise projects the demand for more sustainable construction grows and use of wood has an important role in it ← → with advocates saying it could revolutionize the building industry and be part of a climate change solution But some are questioning whether the logging and manufacturing required to produce the new material outweigh any benefits The eight-story Carbon 12 building in Portland Oregon is the tallest commercial structure in the United States to be built from something called mass timber The move to mass timber is even farther along in Europe That’s because mass timber – large structural panels and beams glued under pressure or nailed together in layers with the wood’s grain stacked perpendicular for extra strength – is not only prized as an innovative building material superior to concrete and steel in many ways it is also hoped it will come into its own as a significant part of a climate change solution “Say the typical steel and concrete building has an emissions profile of 2,000 metric tons of CO2,” said Andrew Ruff of Connecticut-based Gray Organschi Architecture a leading proponent of the laminated wood revolution “With mass timber you can easily invert so you are sequestering 2,000 tons of CO2 Instead of adding to climate change you are mitigating climate change But there are big questions being asked about just how sustainable the new building material is –especially about how forests that produce mass timber are managed and how much CO2 would be emitted in the logging and transport of the wood products used in the construction there aren’t good answers to these questions “Because its components are fabricated off-site to [precise specifications] it goes together really fast on site,” said Dawson “So you can cut months off the construction time You can work through cold weather and don’t have to worry about the temperature tolerances of concrete It’s also a lot quieter than other kinds of construction so you can be a good neighbor.” It’s stronger than steel Mass timber can be cheaper than concrete and steel And when production is scaled up across the globe mass timber should be considerably cheaper Can we reduce CO2 emissions and grow the global economy? Read more The possible prodigious climate benefits, though, are what has many people taking mass timber seriously. These benefits come because of two big facts about commercial construction. First, CO2 emissions from the building industry account for about 40 percent or more of global CO2 emissions. And the manufacture of concrete and steel each contribute about 5 percent of global emissions Beverly Law a professor of global change biology and terrestrial systems science at Oregon State University who headed up the Oregon forest study says there hasn’t been a thorough analysis of carbon emitted by mass timber production because it is enormously complex to track the factors that produce CO2 in forest ecosystems and in production It took her team of researchers more than a decade of analysis to figure out that the Oregon wood products industry was the largest emitter of CO2 in the state “We looked at long- and short-term products transporting from forest to mills to end use and emissions along the way,” she said Another major issue is how long the wood will be in use any analysis of CO2 must account for how much the forest is taking up before and after logging “and a lot of people don’t pay attention to that part of it We just don’t have the information to run this through a life cycle assessment.” First and foremost, they said, is the need to certify that wood is logged sustainably and certified as such. “Without such a requirement,” the letter stated the city “may be encouraging the already rampant clear-cutting of Oregon’s forests… In fact because it can utilize smaller material than traditional timber construction it may provide a perverse incentive to shorten logging rotations and more aggressively clear-cut.” Such industrial-type forestry — large-scale plantings of trees selected to grow fast — creates a “biological desert,” said Talberth “And it’s driving the extinction of thousands of species “We must ensure that mass timber drives sustainable forestry management, otherwise all of these benefits are lost,” agreed Mark Wishnie director of forestry and wood products at The Nature Conservancy “To really understand the potential impact of the increased use of mass timber on climate we need to conduct a much more detailed set of analyses.” and a dozen universities and other research institutions are launching a new analysis of mass timber The hidden environmental toll of mining the world's sand. Read more While there is disagreement on many points “If you look 30 years down the road to 2050 we’re projected to have 2.3 billion new urban dwellers,” said Ruff “That is a huge amount of construction Every day that goes by that we don’t convert from mineral-based extractive construction techniques to carbon sequestering building systems we tend to dig ourselves further in a hole how can we grow this fast enough to be a solution for climate change?” Never miss an article. Subscribe to the E360 Newsletter → Courtesy of Moelven LimtreOver the last few months, we have seen a surge in large timber structures being constructed across the globe claiming to be the biggest, the tallest, or the first of their kind—for example, plans for the Dutch Mountains Contractors Moelven Limtre are one of the key drivers of this change as the perception of timber as a load-bearing material becomes more common Their director Rune Abrahamsen is responsible for one of the current claimants of the world record for the tallest timber building the contractor’s latest project Mjøstårnet is set to reach an even taller height of 81 meters Mjøstårnet it is also the third-tallest building in Norway and the country’s tallest with mixed functions This news coincides with the amendment of the height criteria of the Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat (CTBUH) the official guidelines upon which tall buildings are measured The criteria now include timber as a recognized structural material the update was prompted by the recent uptick of tall timber buildings currently under construction or in planning around the world and the interest of involved stakeholders and the general public in defining what truly constitutes a timber structural system Per the revised criteria for timber structures “both the main vertical/lateral structural elements and the floor spanning system must be constructed from timber An ‘all-timber’ structure may include the use of localized non-timber connections between timber elements A building of timber construction with a floor system of concrete planks as the concrete elements are not acting as the primary structure.” The CTBUH Height and Data Committee, chaired by Scott Duncan, a partner with global design firm Skidmore, Owings & Merrill refine the height criteria upon which tall buildings are defined and measured The committee meets on a regular basis to discuss the latest developments in the tall building industry possible additions or revisions to the criteria specific buildings requiring close evaluation to determine their height and/or categorization in accordance with the established criteria No data on this website may be downloaded or copied for use on other websites or in other publications without prior written consent from this site’s webmaster While net-zero energy buildings and retrofits can improve those numbers the materials it uses—has an intrinsic role to play a new high-rise edifice built almost entirely of wood—call it a “plyscraper”—has finally opened its doors making it the tallest timber-frame structure in the world Could this be a key to creating the sustainable cities of tomorrow Wood-construction products company Moelven thinks so; Mjøstårnet was built using local renewable resources and since wood stores CO2 throughout its life cycle Wood buildings do present certain challenges, of course, the biggest being fire safety, and, because the materials are light, they shift more easily under extreme exterior forces. To overcome the latter, large-scale columns and trusses were used; many were left exposed, making them “a vital part of the interior design,” says Øystein Elgsaas, a partner at Voll. The building is also designed to withstand a complete burnout; tests show it will not collapse. Much of the interiors of Mjøstårnet were crafted in wood, mimicking the exterior design. A view of the staircase leading down the 280-foot-tall skyscraper. That would please Abrahamsen and Elgsaas immensely, it would seem; both say that Mjøstårnet was largely built to help other contractors see what can be done. “The most important aspect of this building,” says Elgsaas, “is to show that it is possible to build large, complex timber buildings, and in that fashion, inspire others to do the same.” This website is using a security service to protect itself from online attacks The action you just performed triggered the security solution There are several actions that could trigger this block including submitting a certain word or phrase You can email the site owner to let them know you were blocked Please include what you were doing when this page came up and the Cloudflare Ray ID found at the bottom of this page Warren Mabee receives funding from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council and from the Canada Research Chairs Foundation Queen's University, Ontario provides funding as a founding partner of The Conversation CA Queen's University, Ontario provides funding as a member of The Conversation CA-FR View all partners architects and engineers are crafting cutting-edge skyscrapers from one of the most renewable and sustainable materials available to humanity — wood For the time being, the tallest wooden building in the world is the Mjøstårnet an 18-storey building north of Oslo that houses offices wood may seem an archaic and even dangerous choice for tall building construction compared to modern alternatives like concrete But as emissions associated with tall buildings continue to rise governments at all levels are looking for low-carbon In Canada, buildings account for 12.7 per cent of national greenhouse gas emissions. Globally, buildings lead to 40 per cent of total emissions investing in new tall wooden building construction is an opportunity for sustainable economic growth — but challenges remain Today’s tall wooden buildings are different from the two-by-four wood framing usually seen in single-family homes or two- to four-storey condominium structures So-called “mass timber” construction is derived from old techniques of post-and-beam construction, but uses advanced technologies, including cross-laminated timbers (CLT) and laminated veneer lumber (LVL) which feature layers of wood bonded with adhesives and produced as either beams or panels Some concrete and steel may be used around elevator shafts or stairwells in mass timber construction but floors and beams may be made entirely of wood Structural wood products like CLT have a number of advantages in tall wooden building consruction: they are lighter than conventional materials require less energy to make than either steel or concrete (and thus produce lower emissions) Their relative lightness makes it possible to assemble floor and wall sections off-site and ship them to the build site significantly reducing the amount of building time required the on-site construction for the Origine project in Québec City was completed in only four months Adopting tall wooden construction could greatly reduce the amount of disruption — dust for example - that construction brings to the urban landscape Prefabrication also means that building structures can be designed to maximize energy efficiency since individual components can be built precisely in a factory minimizing errors and ensuring that measurements are exact preventing it from entering the atmosphere by sequestering it in the building for decades buildings made of steel and concrete generate large amounts of carbon emissions per tonne of material produced For example, the Brock Commons at UBC sequesters an estimated 1,753 tonnes of CO2. Research suggests that tall wooden buildings have a 20 per cent reduction in both their carbon and energy footprints These types of buildings could be important in helping Canada achieve net zero performance measures related to energy efficiency and overall carbon emissions that will be required in meeting future climate goals The perception remains that tall wooden buildings are less resistant to fire than a typical concrete and steel building But the designs of these buildings meet stringent fire codes The U.S. National Fire Protection Association, in collaboration with Canada’s National Research Council, recently delivered a series of reports on the fire risk associated with tall wooden buildings with particular focus on the behaviour of cross-laminated timbers or laminated veneer lumber Overall, their findings showed that tall wooden buildings can meet the minimum two-hour fire protection ratings required by most jurisdictions if proper fireproofing materials and sprinklers are incorporated into the design the design minimizes danger in early stages allowing inhabitants to escape and the fire to be brought under control Another challenge tall wooden buildings face is the environmental impact they may have on forests any benefit derived from the building itself would be offset by increased deforestation and habitat loss A number of tools, like the certification programs run by the Forest Stewardship Council or the Programme for the Endorsement of Wood Certification provide important third-party verification that forest harvests are done within a sustainable management regime; these schemes are constantly being reviewed to consider all aspects of forest sustainability including carbon depletion in forest soils and impacts to biodiversity it is critical that the wood used in construction be sourced in an increasingly sustainable fashion Tall wooden buildings are likely to play an increasingly important role in our carbon mitigation strategies. Recent work suggests that shifting to wooden construction could act as an ever-increasing carbon sink allowing more and more carbon to be sequestered safely in useful applications The crown for the tallest wood building will be hard to keep. In Tokyo, a proposal for a 350-metre tall 70-storey building is currently vying for the title engineers and tradespeople become comfortable with these materials tall wooden buildings will increasingly become a part of the urban landscape around the world Arthur and Anders Buchardt of AB Invest AS and contractor HENT AS have entered into a turnkey contract to build Mjøstårnet in Brumunddal This will be the world's tallest wooden building.  HENT AS has entered into a contract with Moelven Limtre AS The company in Moelv will be the turnkey subcontractor and will supply glulam Kerto and solid wood structures for the tower structure and swimming hall in the project Development collaboration Marketing and development director Knut Alstad of HENT AS says that the project is the result of a development collaboration between AB Invest AS as client HENT AS as project developer and turnkey contractor “Traditional materials in a high-tech context are the keywords here This is a project we all will be proud of – and that we are very pleased to have developed,” Alstad says 18 storeys Mjøstårnet's overall size will be around 15,000 m2 and will span 18 storeys and include apartments The total height will be more than 80 metres The value of the contract for HENT AS is around NOK 500 million For Moelven Limtre the contract with HENT AS is worth NOK 47 million Startup on 1 April Planning is well under way and work at the building site will start on 1 April 2017 According to client and investor Arthur Buchardt the project will also include a modern swimming facility around 4,000 m2 in size – beautifully located with the Mjøsa lake as its closest neighbour and operated by Ringsaker municipality.  “The main structure is based on glulam with slab elements consisting of a combination of glulam and Kerto This is a response to the "green shift," and proof that wood is a material that can compete with traditional solutions in high-rises too enabling climate-friendly building as long as one has the right mindset,” says client Arthur Buchardt Excited Director Rune Abrahamsen of Moelven Limtre AS is excited to cooperate with HENT AS on building the Mjøstårnet project in Brumunddal for Arthur Buchardt “In recent years HENT AS has delivered a number of 0 fault projects They have delivered several major building projects to both public and private developers all over the country – including projects for investor Buchardt,” Abrahamsen says Delivers the goods Abrahamsen believes this means they have great confidence in Moelven Limtre AS's ability to deliver the goods “Moelven Limtre AS will be turnkey subcontractor for the tower building and swimming hall in the project This is without question one our largest contracts ever,” Abrahamsen says Pleased Knut Alstad is pleased that the contract has been concluded with Moelven Limtre AS and is looking forward to proceeding with the project “When developing and building projects of this scale and character There is no doubt that Moelven Limtre AS is in that category The fact that they are local is also particularly pleasing We're going to break a world record together and this requires that we put every effort into good planning and structured implementation,” Alstad says.     Wood dominant Rune Abrahamsen explains that Mjøsparken will consist of glulam in columns and solid wood in elevator shafts and stairwells “The tallest building – the one we call Mjøstårnet – will have wood-based slab elements in the bottom ten storeys in the form of Moelven's Trä8 elements Moelven Limtre will supply and install all wooden structures Installation will take place from September 2017 and until April 2018 Sweco AS in Lillehammer is responsible for planning and design of the structure for Moelven Limtre Ringsaker Takelementer is assembling the wood elements for Moelven Limtre AS,” Abrahamsen says Attatchements: Illustations of Mjøstårnet NAME: Marketing and development director Knut Alstad E-MAIL: Knut.alstad@hent.no   E-MAIL: erik.tveit@hent.no  It has been used for buildings and structures and other products for several thousands of years In recent years the use of wood in buildings has increased and this is partly due to research and development efforts through Innovation Norway and the Research Council of Norway A clear political focus on the environment has resulted in greater interest in forestry locally produced materials and increased use of wood Wood has the unique position of being our only renewable building material Its production is friendly to the environment and efficient with regard to resources and it contributes to reduce the overall climate impact from the building industry Wood also has a positive effect on the indoor environment in several ways Today's architects and engineers are contributing to developing the material through innovative architecture using wood The government also singles out wood as a material in several respects – in agriculture Moelven industrier ASA is a Scandinavian industrial group that supplies products and associated services to the Scandinavian building market. The Group's businesses employ over 3.500 persons and have a total annual turnover of some NOK 10 billion. The Group's close to 52 business production units are organised into three divisjons: Timber, Wood and Building Systems.www.moelven.nowww.moelven.sewww.moelven.dkwww.moelven.com by Voll Arkitekter has been confirmed as the world’s tallest timber building by the Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat hotel and residential Mjøstårnet scheme is now the third-tallest building in Norway and the country’s highest multi-function building The tower stole the global title from Brock Commons Tallwood House in Vancouver a 53m-high residential block featuring a hybrid wood and concrete structure Until Mjøstårnet was completed, the tallest fully-timber building was also in Norway: the Artec-designed Treet in Bergen Mjøstårnet has been built using completely local resources local suppliers and sustainable timber specifications The main load-bearing structure consists of large-scale glulam trusses externally with a cross-laminated timber core containing three lifts and two stairs Prefabricated façade panels cover the timber structure The completion of this building and subsequent verification as world’s tallest building comes as Arup published a new report on the use of timber in building design and construction Rethinking Timber Buildings: Seven perspectives on the use of timber in building design and construction looks at the use of wood as a response to the urgent need to ‘rethink in our approach to construction to deliver a net zero [carbon emissions] built environment’ Alongside case studies showcasing exemplar and contrasting methods of building with timber the report focuses on issues ranging from refabrication and sustainable sourcing to innovation and urban densification Published by Arup’s internal consultant think-tank the report aims to ‘move the discourse forward on the increasing use of timber as part of the construction industry’s concerted endeavour to build a safe It acknowledges that solely the use of timber will not solve the built environment’s issues but advocates for timber to be considered as a important component of how professionals choose to design The report’s case studies include several in Europe: Filbornaverket incineration plant in Helsingborg, Sweden, a rail storage building in Zurich, Woodcube apartment building in Hamburg, Trondheim Moholt student housing village the first practice in the UK to use CLT in a public building comments: ’I appreciate the wide-ranging and holistic nature of the report’s content and find it an excellent and timely publication’ Dalston Lane in London by Waugh Thistleton is also showcased for its complex site and its adoption of lightweight CLT construction allowing a taller build in view of a proposal to construct railway tunnels beneath the site Tokyo-based architects Kazuyo Sejima and Ryue Nishizawa of SANAA chatted to the… Skyscraper expert SimpsonHaugh has submitted plans for a 50-storey and a 25-storey… MVRDV and Mecanoo are among five finalists vying to design… Squire & Partners has finally won planning Service hubs with tailored expertise to help you accelerate your business​ Let’s all take advantage of the AI wave – and be the developers of digital futures Tailored software solutions to smoothly run your business​ Custom made offerings adapted for your specific industry Join us on our journey towards responsible AI and explore the opportunities it can bring the company employs about 24 000 experts globally serving thousands of large clients in more than 90 countries or utilize the instructions provided within the service agreement related to support and maintenance The Pinnacle Persiaran Lagoon Bandar Sunway Subang Jaya Giménez 4855 c/ San Roque González 51 CHIN SWEE ROAD #01-39 MANHATTAN HOUSE Creating purposeful technology that reinvents the world for good The violence that erupted from the Norwegian black metal scene of the early ’90s still has the power to chill the blood The horrifying moral vacuum at the heart of the scene is illustrated by the suicide of Per Yngve Ohlin (aka Dead) vocalist with the band Mayhem (pictured here years after his death) in 1991 who calmly took photographs of the gory scene one of which emerged on the sleeve of a bootleg Mayhem live album The burnt remains of the wooden church of Brumunddal in Norway The fire-burning was thought to be inspired by fascist ideas being expressed in heavy metal music The notorious Norwegian black metal scene returned to the headlines recently infamous frontman of Norwegian black metallers Burzum and convicted murderer is set to be released from prison after serving 16 years of a 21 year sentence who formerly styled himself as Count Grishnackh having served 16 years of a 21-year prison sentence for the murder of à The world’s defining voice in music and pop culture: breaking what’s new and what’s next since 1952 For reprint rights:Times Syndication Service Australian sales of Sexcel sexed genetics has doubled in the past five months as dairy farmers reduce bobby calves and breed replacements from their most profitable cows This comes as one of the country’s most popular Sexcel Holstein bulls held firm in the recent Australian Breeding Values (ABV) release Tailor has been the biggest selling ABS Sexcel and conventional sire in Australia during the past four months according to ABS’ Australian business operations manager Bruce Ronalds He said Tailor's popularity was testament to his consistency He has added 74 milking daughters to his Australian proof and increased to 317 Balanced Performance Index (BPI) “Tailor had a strong BPI and was identified as a top Australian sire back in April and now he’s improved again,” Mr Ronalds said “Dairy farmers have chosen him with confidence and are making the most of sexed Tailor to breed the next generation “With an increase in demand around the world Sexcel’s improved conception rates mean farmers now have confidence using it to join their cows no longer is sexed genetics just for heifers.” Mr Ronalds said dairy farmers could create their own certainty in their breeding program as nine of the top 21 Australian-proven Holsteins sires in this ABV release belonged to ABS This success is a credit to the vigorous testing to ensure the bulls work consistently on Australian farms with a BPI$ of 391 ranked number four on the Interbull list as he only has 15 daughters milking in Australia he stands out from the pack,” Mr Ronalds said Another new standout proven sire is 29HO17334 Wilder Hamlet A2 sires that also has exceptional functional type “There aren’t many that have a Dairy Strength of 103 Overall Type 109 and Mammary at 107,” he said but there’s absolutely nothing deceiving about one of the most exciting new Holstein sires to hit the market Currajugle Snakeoil is the son of one of Australia’s most loved Holstein bulls – Seagull-Bay MVP I’ve never heard of a bull so high,” Mr Ronalds said “I don’t think I’ve seen a bull with more than one per cent “The cow family averages about nine per cent solids it’s incredible and important for the bottom-line.” the five-year-old will soon receive an Australian proof 29HO19378 FB 53 Kenobi Giannis is a Holstein sire that ticks all the boxes A2 and scoring 105 for Calving Ease and 111 for Daughter Fertility – he was perfect for anyone looking for an all-round bull Hot off the success of outcross Sexcel Jersey sire 29JE4213 Forest Glen Craze TRIPP – 206 BPI$ – ABS has introduced 29JE4195 ABS Marine to the Australia market this year positive daughter fertility and extreme teat length – 107 – he was what Jersey breeders had been asking for which are common bloodlines in Australia,” he said “Since we bought TRIPP into Australia as an outcross we’ve hardly been able to keep up with demand “Australian farmers want an outcross and Marine is their answer.” One of the few Jerseys with a positive score for milk components new bull CSCMOTOWN (Murray Brook MOTOWN) has entered the genomic ABV rankings at number 16 he is a half-brother to the popular CSCJAMIEO and is a standout for Type at 107 Gippsland-bred CSCTOYOTA (Auburn Vale TOYOTA) boasts a 108 for Daughter Fertility - the highest in the top 11 genomic Jersey bulls Australian dairy farmers are seeing red - and loving it with the first sexed Red bull 252NR11690 ROEN leading the charge Ranked at number one on the Health Weighted Index (HWI) and number two with a BPI of 275 ROEN also has breed-leading Daughter Fertility at 111 Sold under the REDX™ brand – using the same technology as Sexcel® – he is proving his value on-farm sitting just one Australian Selection Index (ASI) point behind Australia’s top Red bull “Normally bulls this good are kept for use back in Norway but they are making BRUMUNDDAL PP available Great news for Australian farmers,” Mr Ronalds said heterozygous polled and the highest Norwegian bull available at 34 Total Merit.” The introduction of BRUMUNDDAL PP follows the Australian success of fellow Norwegian high-ranked A2 Red bull 252NR12009 MAURSTAD PP who is also now available in REDX The structure serves as a museum, a hybrid of a temple and a castle, that is themed on the Ayutthaya Kingdom and of Buddhist and Hindu beliefs This is a mass timber hybrid high-rise apartment building located in Milwaukee The building is 87 meters and 25 storeys tall Ascent MKE is the world’s tallest mass timber apartment building The project was unveiled back in 2018 with an initial design of 21 floors updates and subsequent approvals brought the total number of floors to 25 in March 2020 Actual construction on the Ascent began in August 2020 and the building was completed in August 2022 The building features a total of 259 luxury apartments an elevated pool with operable window walls The 85-meter-high tower claimed the title of the tallest timber building in the world after it was completed in March 2019 Mjøstårnet was entirely built using cross-laminated timber from the large-scale interior trusses to its elevators The 18-story building is made of CLT and glulam which are strong enough to support large loads Floor slabs and prefabricated sections were jacked up by internal scaffolding and a large crane The local suppliers were lucky enough to supply locally sourced materials that were used to construct the ascending structure Mjøstårnet stands as a contemporary tower offering a diverse range of amenities for its residents as well as the local community and visitors Each floor boasts an expansive area of approximately 640 square meters contributing to a total program size of around 10,500 square meters the tower features a public bath spanning an additional 4,500 square meters The building reached an unprecedented height of 53 meters in the summer of 2017; thus, it is the 2nd tallest timber building in the world. Tall Wood Residence was designed by the Canadian practice Acton Ostry Architects Inc leading companies and consulting firms such as Fast+ Epp and Australia-based Architekten Herman Kaufmann collaborated The 18-story building houses 404 students as the Brock Common Student Residence at UBC (the University of  British Columbia) Prefabricated steel elements and concrete core were utilized to assist the mass timber frame Managing Director of Infrastructure Development at UBC working with wood reduced construction timelines An essential aspect of the prefabrication process was the utilization of a comprehensive 3D model This model facilitated collaborative discussions and the implementation of ideas across different departments before the finalization of plans for actual fabrication or construction Thanks to meticulous planning and the seamless integration of design and construction processes Brock Commons was successfully finished in a remarkable timeframe of only 70 days after the prefabricated components were prepared for assembly The Tree or Treet stands 49 meters tall and is one of the tallest timber buildings in the world Its load-bearing framework structure comprises glulam truss work then a prefabricated module with a platform at the top made of a fortified concrete deck The purpose of the concrete slabs was to give the structure the required weight The bb14-story building has a total of 62 apartments and internal costs such as project management According to the project developers  Bergen and Omegn Building Society timber construction aided to avoid the excretion of more than 21000 metric driblets of carbon dioxide Dalston Lane is one of the tallest timber buildings in the world The 10-story building denoted the perspective of using timber to construct high-density buildings in the United Kingdom Dalston Lane is made of CLT from the first floor to the tenth floor The project was designed by a British architect who indicated that timber was inexpensive and fantastic for the environment The timber building is a short distance away from Cube was designed and constructed by developer Lend Lease It is one of the tallest timber buildings in the world The spurring structure was built within 11 months unlocking a new era in the future for Cross Laminated Timber (CLT) constructions Forte was the first timber high-rise building in Australia built entirely from CLT to lower carbon dioxide emissions by more than 1400 tonnes Forte is a residential building that comprises 759 CLT panels of European spruce Welcome to Construction Review a portal that serves the building and construction industry through our blog social media presence and print publication Contact us Guest Posting Take down policy