Ah Tan Blog
2020-11-25
【Climate Innovation Stories】The Construction of a Literal Wood City!
Writer: Vincent Lee
Have you ever imagined a city built entirely out of woods? The fairytale that could only be seen happening in fictional books has now turned into reality.
Located in Helsinki, Finland, a visually appealing “Wood City” slowly immerses in the country capital. It is a district of residential buildings, offices and hotels made entirely out of wood, where concrete is only used in the two cores of the office building and the first floor of apartment blocks to meet safety standards.
These 8 stories-tall buildings are mostly being built using Laminated Veer Lumber panels or LVL. It is an engineered-wood material that is light, strong and highly reliable. Besides LVL, the wood city also used other types of woods such as Accoya wood and spruce.
But why is wood being used in construction sites when it is a critical material to our environment? To answer this question, we need to find out where the wood city sources their materials from. In fact, “Wood City” have recruited all their materials from a so-called "Sustainably managed forests," a place where forests are managed in aligned with the principles of sustainable development. The goods yielded from these forests are ensured to be within the level of what the forest is capable of, avoiding degradation of soil while maintaining and enhancing tree density. These strategies help safeguard the environment and make sure the process will not harm the nature of soil fertility and wildlife. Therefore, wood is considered to be one of the most renewable and sustainable materials and has the lowest carbon emission among building materials, thus alleviates humans' impact on the environment.
The use of sustainable materials is expected to slowly replace traditional building materials around the world as this project progresses. Even current building materials still focus on using concrete, steel, and cement, the construction of the “Wood City” in Helsinki has set new heights in Architecture. The introduction of sustainable materials might have just turned our future into an eco-friendlier livelihood filled with limitless possibilities. Here is to the future!
Source:
https://www.pefc.org/what-we-do/our-approach/what-is-sustainable-forest-management
https://interestingengineering.com/wood-city-a-sustainable-smart-city-development-that-follows-finlands-tradition-using-wood-as-a-building-material