HONG KONG: For more than a century, countries have raced to build the world’s tallest buildings with concrete and steel. Now, a quiet contest in constructing tall wooden buildings, from Amsterdam to Tokyo, underlines growing environmental concerns over concrete.
Construction of office towers, bridges, airports and highways is booming in developing nations across the world. In contrast, wood requires fewer fossil fuels to transport and assemble, and also effectively stores large amounts of carbon – trapped as the trees grew – for years, helping curb emissions, said Andy Buchanan, professor of timber design at the University of Canterbury in New Zealand.Each cubic metre of timber used in construction stores a carbon equivalent of over 900 kilograms of CO2 emissions, meaning a reduction of 135 kg-360 kg of CO2 emissions per square metre of floor area, said Buchanan.
Examples are easy to find, from London’s nine-storey residential Stadthaus to Melbourne’s 10-storey Forte apartment building. “Wood is ideally suited for lower rise buildings, but it is really exciting that engineers and architects worldwide are experimenting with the use of wood for taller structures,” he said.
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