All over the world, environmentally friendly wooden buildings are steadily reaching new heights. In 2016, the University of British Columbia completed work on all 53 meters of the Brock Commons student housing project The Tree. In 2018, Norway became home to the world’s highest wooden building. In May this year, Singapore claims to have the largest timber building in Asia with a sprawling 468,000 square feet college campus. And now the world’s largest wood city is projected – in Sweden.
The developers say high efficiency and precision are saving time and money. The domino effect of building in wood continues when Swedish real estate developer Atrium Ljungberg is getting ready to build the world’s largest wooden city, constructed in Sweden’s capital, Stockholm, from 2025.
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Stockholm Wood City will feature 7,000 office spaces and 2,000 homes in the city’s southeast, and will offer “a vibrant, urban environment with a mix of workplaces, housing, restaurants and shops,” according to a press release. Set across 250,000 square meters (2.7 million square feet), it has been described by its developer as the “world’s largest known construction project in wood.”
The project is being built in Sickla, a neighborhood already home to more than 400 companies, according to Atrium Ljungberg, which owns a retail park on the former industrial site. The developer describes the area as a “five-minute city,” claiming that workplaces, homes, leisure facilities and amenities are all within a five-minute walk of one another.
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You might also like to read about experimental wooden structures in Norway. Just click the image below:
Of all building materials, wood holds a special place. It is a renewable, ecological, environmentally friendly, and climate-smart material. And durable. Think about the numerous wood houses that are hundreds of years old!
It’s a climate-smart choice. The use of timber in urban construction has been found to produce significantly lower carbon emissions than conventional building materials.
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The largest wooden building in Northern Europe is found in Trondheim, Norway. Click the image below to learn more.
However, it also brings new risks. The biggest is the fire safety risk associated with wooden buildings — though that’s a divisive point. Proponents say fears of inflated fire risks are misinformed, while skeptics point to issues concerning fire safety regulations.
Timber has been championed as a sustainable alternative to concrete and steel, with ambitious new construction projects utilizing wood beyond single-family homes and modest residential or office buildings. A mixed-use development of this size would, however, be “a historic milestone for Swedish innovation capability,” said Annica Ånäs, CEO of Atrium Ljungberg, in a statement.
There are other reasons to choose wood too. It’s a delightful material to work with, it’s easy to restore and maintain and gives a warm and cozy feeling wherever it’s used. Sweden is a forest country and building with wood, the country’s abundant natural renewable resource, supports the nations growth, climate, and environmental goals.
Designed by architecture firms White Arkitekter and Henning Larsen, construction on “Stockholm Wood City” is slated to begin in 2025 and will take a decade to complete.
The World’s Largest Wood City – in Sweden, written by Tor Kjolberg
All images © Atrium Ljungberg