World's Tallest Wooden Structure to be Built Next Year

At 270-feet and €60M plans for the world’s tallest wooden structure, to be built next year, have been unveiled. Designed by Rudiger Lainer and Partner the wooden skyscraper will be built in the Seestadt Aspern area of Vienna, Austria and will house apartments, a hotel, restaurants and offices. It is expected that 76% of the building will be made from wood, which will save roughly 2,800 tonnes of CO₂ emissions when compared to an equivalent concrete structure.

Since 2013, when Canadian architect Michael Green gave a TED talk extolling the virtues of large structures built from wood, many tall buildings have been completed in Canada, Australia and England. According to Green, one cubic meter of wood will store one tonne of CO₂. Therefore, wooden structures can be of huge benefit to air quality around the word, since over 8% of the worlds greenhouse gasses are emitted from the use of synthetic building materials such as concrete and steel.

Some are skeptical of using wood though. Viennese Fire officials are concerned about the thermal resistance of wooden structural elements in their future high-rise. The Fire Department has conducted special tests and required a more sensitive sprinkler system to be installed than is required in other towers. According to Green, though, wood is much more predictable in how it burns and if engineered properly a wooden structure is safer than steel or concrete under thermal stress.