Why Wood Is the Breakout Architecture Star of the Early 21st Century
Timber skyscrapers and campuses are proliferating around the world. A new Bloomberg Green series looks at the rise and climate-boosting potential of an ancient material made new.
The lobby of the Sara Cultural Center, a 20-story timber high-rise, in the center of Skelleftea, Sweden, in December 2022.
Photo illustration: Stephanie Davidson; Photo: Jonas Ekblom/Bloomberg
In the 1990s, architects and builders in central Europe started experimenting with a novel material. It was wood, but a far cry from a contractor’s 2-by-4s: These were panels like thick wooden sandwiches, the layers stacked and glued with the grains at perpendicular angles, greatly increasing their strength. Called cross-laminated timber, or CLT, the product began to be used in buildings from Austria to Scandinavia.
Eventually, CLT and glued laminated beams and columns — a family of materials known as mass timber — made their way across the Atlantic. Architects were enthusiastic, but familiarizing themselves and the construction sector with a new way to build was a learning curve.