A wooden skyscraper that Austrian architects say will be the tallest of its kind in the world is to be built in Vienna next year. The 84-metre (276ft) HoHo project in the Seestadt Aspern area, one of Europe’s largest urban development sites, will house a hotel, apartments, restaurant, wellness centre and offices, and is expected to cost about €60m (£44m). — The Guardian
Designed by Rüdiger Lainer and Partner, the skyscraper would consist of 76% wood. The material choice, according to project developer Caroline Palfy of Kerbler, is largely ecological. While wood requires hewing down trees, its net environmental impact is far lower than concrete: construction would produce 2,800 tonnes less of CO2 emissions than an equivalent-sized concrete structure.
Of course, there's a reason why our cities don't tend to be populated by wooden towers. And the Viennese fire service has already expressed concern over the designs. But, with measures including "a more fail-safe sprinkler system," the building will likely pass muster.
For others, criticism of the proposed skyscraper center around its height. Politicians and other civically-engaged Austrians have expressed concern that the tower will not fit into the historic city's skyline.
More generally, there's been a good deal of interest in the use of wood in skyscraper design in the last few years. For related content, check out articles here and here.
Just love materials? Check out the top-ten images from our Pinterest board devoted to wood here.
33 Comments
Looks like concrete frame with wood infill even it is not. Fail.
Strongly disagree, and not because of the style. This is the kind of experimentation that should be going on. Wood is the ultimate renewable resource. What it looks like is far less important than a host of other considerations including performance, safety, sustainability, etc.
We (architects and clients) need to get over the style first (or style only) mindset.
also carbon sequestration is a plus
It's got to be the first Chinese architect, Dowager Wenming, who arrived in Santorini Island took a one swooping look at the concrete structure and pulled out a piece of wood under the robe she was wearing and said "here is your noodle, your concrete frame should look just like it." They (the Greeks) thought she was really insane but later on they thought she was a genius. Her great X 20 granddaughter married a fellow named James Hardie and they got into globally successful wood print cementitious siding business and set all the forests in fire to eliminate the competition.
I am pretty sure the rendering is far crappier than what the building will look like. The Eiffel tower was a technical marvel and considered by most who had supposed "taste" to be not appropriate based on their stylistic preference....can not wait to see it built.
Actually my comment was rather about material properties than taste. Do you think Kahn's famous quote about brick was about style? Does anyone know how many acres of forestry each floor of the proposed building would require? Are you sure of your carbon calculations? How about cultural, economical and geographical equity? It is a little auto answer to say wood is renewable and such but the equation is not necessarily reasonable without other factors, some of which I just mentioned. Sure wood is a nice friendly, renewable material, but it is also very expensive to harvest and by the time it is engineered to comply with the long list of requirements, there is very little left of that tree product.
^ Thus the term experimentation.
One of the links to research - if you pursue the matter - is a claim that Norway? grows enough wood in 10 hours to satisfy their building needs.
The Swedes have beautifully managed forests that are used for industrial production of timber.
Did I say economical and geographical equity? Norway and Sweden, two of the richest and most educated nations per capita on earth with combined population of 15 million. They probably could built everything from insulated chocolate truffle cake if they have to.
Just showing what's possible if one dispenses with rape and pillage mentality.
Alas, the US used to be one of the richest and most educated nations ...
That's some serious Type V, baby.
The wood like a tree wants to be tall, the Lou Kahn would ask.
Since Citizen brought up building code....imagine if the Swedes and Norwegians set the precedent in their building code by stating something like "owner shall plant in equal number trees employed for construction of proposed work"...........now try doing that with steel and concrete.
Its too bad that the only interesting thing about this project is the material. I hope the design improves.
^ You are stuck on appearances. You need to look deeper and give equal consideration to all aspects of the work.
Miles,
You just like that its wood. That's not depth in my opinion.
276 foot wood tower. Kind of blows that BIGgie and Featherwicky project out of the water for originality and technical merit......and I believe Davvid you said renderings are an illusion? This is just not that impressive of an illusion, but fortunately for me I have some imagination.
davvid, until you have some cognitive process to bring to these discussions I'm done.
Olaf,
I said that "renderings are always illusions to some degree" and that the fluffy images and words that are released signal the project's goals. That seems true for this project. Its a pretty standard developer building, but its wood.
Yes it's wood. It's fucking 276 tower or wood. Fuckin wood. A fuckin tower made of wood. A very tall building made of wood instead of steel and concrete. It is fucking wood. Wood comes from trees that you can plant. It's wood. God damn mother fucking wood. I believe I have made my point.
Way to elevate the discussion Olaf.
Is there anything else you like about this design?
haha, you said wood.
you're welcome Davvid!
Makes me want to set all my basswood models on fire.
Does this building have fireplaces?
.
does austria have the resources to reasonably build this project? access to wood and such i mean. they're a temperate climate so i don't see why they wouldn't. they have a fairly robust economy as i understand it. they have occupational safety regulations and inspections. do we really anticipate some sort of problem related to geography or culture or economy?
i wonder about the longevity. concrete can last pretty much forever. steel can rust but it's fairly easy to coat it in such a way that it won't. wood rot on the 10th floor could become a problem with fairly significant consequences over time. if it's all treated wood, maybe the environmental aspects become a bit less appealing.
toward a wood lifestyle
You have to love the courage it takes to even propose this. Wood is almost magical in its essence. The earth converts sun power and water into high rise buildings! Now, if we can build wooden cars that last longer than the Morgans that still use wooden frames.
"The Skidmore, Owings & Merrill system uses... engineered wood called...glulam, for the building columns, and cross-laminated timber slabs for the central core, floors and shear walls, which provide stiffness against wind loads. But the concept calls for concrete beams along the perimeter of each floor and elsewhere to allow for longer spans and thus more flexibility in floor layouts." http://nyti.ms/1fvfuE2
@curt
Most of the construction grade timber in Western Europe is imported from Scandinavia.
There are numerous pure wood structures around the globe that have survived for a thousand years with proper maintenance. Engineered composites are not time tested to that extent but have considerable potential. In my experience the life of wood structure is determined by sensitivity to the material (aka good design).
Davvid in high school I worked at a feed place that also was the FedEx for the Amish community. This meant I delivered lots of buggy parts including wood wheels just like the hummer image above. The communities and infrastructure for hand fabrication of the parts was was pretty well established mainly from Western PA thru OH and IN well into MO. One community built the wheels. Another the shocks etc...this stuff was quality. We also sold high price horse Feed, the equivalent of premium gas you might put into your Ferrari.....occasionally my boss would ramble about how us Englishmen had it all wrong with technology. The Amish spoke a very old dialect of German, sounded Swiss to my German ears.....it's not a bad lifestyle frankly.
^ When the crashes come they hardly notice. Fewer tourists.
Smart people.
They are and some people think they may not know what is going on, but they do. I had a long conversation once with one guy who asked me if I had done Mardi Gras yet. He had done it in the late 80's when he did the whole leave the community and check out the world thing, but he decided to come back and get himself a nice wife and build a house and farm.
brings back some memories...CDL license was a nice gig, lots of radio, thinking, back roads of mainly rural Missouri...occasionally up to Iowa and over to Indiana and back...
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