Wood: the growing building material of the future

Three wood-framed apartment blocks nearing completion in Strasbourg will be the highest wooden buildings in France with one at 11 floors and two others at eight. In total, they will provide

146 homes. Using wood costs 20% more than concrete and demands a larger workforce to handle it, but it can be used in many different forms to give a low-pollution building site where 16m by

3m panels can be quickly built. In addition, much of the work on the panels is done in a factory so the site needs less storage space. Cross-laminated wood is also used as a light and strong

replacement for massively-polluting and heavy reinforced concrete beams that support many large structures. This was vital in the upcoming Porte Brancion project in Paris where three

buildings with student and young workers’ residences plus a sports hall will be built on top of and beside the Périphérique, giving 270 rooms. Developer Woodeum said wood panels and beams

are 99% natural (the other 1% being non-formaldehyde glue) and gave a robust, durable, airtight, sound and heat insulated, light-weight and fire-safe building. They are also

energy-efficient, as the firm said heat went to warm the residents, not the concrete walls, meaning considerable savings on energy bills. In Strasbourg Deux-Rives, the Sen­sations project

started in 2017 and is due to finish in February 2019. The 11-floor tower was erected exceptionally quickly, in eight weeks which is half the time of a concrete building. Costing Bouygues

Immobilier €14million, it will provide housing and shops and aims to bring “life to a new quarter with welcoming architecture that gives a desirable place to live”. Many of the

fully-equipped flats will open south on to the gardens. Christophe Ouhayoun, of Paris architects Koz, said: “The flats will have an exceptional quality of life and many technical

innovations, especially for the heating and the air quality.” Many innovative developers are turning to wood as it is a modern-day construction ‘standard’ that fits with environmental

principles and corporate social responsibility and is already disrupting conventional building practices. It can be used in many forms with wooden joists replacing concrete ones and

laminated panels made into any shape, computer cut into exactly the right size at the factory and delivered ready to be fitted – unlike concrete, which uses standardised moulds and needs

lots of space while also being noisy and messy. Woodeum says wood has a low carbon cost in fabrication and transport and, as a natural renewable carbon store – it has been stocking carbon

and giving out oxygen all its life – is a natural and warm material that “gives rooms where sound and warmth diffuse differently, giving a feeling of well-being, harmony and security”. It is

an important renewable resource for France which has 170,000km2 of forests and the Fédération Forestiers Privés de France says daily growth is enough to build a 200m2 house every 10

seconds. The Porte Brancion plan in the Paris 15th arrondissement by Hardel Le Bihan architects will open up the rather sad site above the Boulevard Périphérique with the bright wooden

buildings having large glassed areas. The expressway runs underneath one of the two much-needed residential buildings along with a multisports hall with five-a-side pitches, gym and a sports

bar, while the other residence with 157 rooms will be built on the Vanves side and have a productive garden on the roof. The project was a winner in the Paris ‘Invent the Métropole’ project

last autumn so no building work has started and there is no finishing date. Mathurin Hardel of the architects said: “The three buildings give a visual breathing space reintroducing nature

into the road site. The permitted load on the slab naturally made us turn to wood because of its weight and the site causes less disruption.” Although the Strasbourg project will be the

tallest in France it will be outdone when the Tour Signal gets off the ground in Le Havre as the plan there is for a 14-floor ‘lighthouse’ to open up the Dumont d’Urville area in the urban

renewal zone by the port. Architect Marie Schweitzer says the 40m tower with raised terraced garden and 52 flats has been largely inspired by local residents. She adds: “This tower is more

than a signal. It represents the emblem of the industry of the future (wood) carried by the city of Le Havre. “That is why we wanted it to emerge from its own source: vegetation and to

detach itself from it by floating above this base which gave birth to it and to give it back its freedom. “The trees of the garden allow, as in Japan, to measure the size of the building and

to assert its greatness while recalling the human scale.” In the south Nice will have the largest wooden office building in France when the Palazzo Méridia opens in October 2019 as a

nine-floor positive- energy building at the new Nice Eco-Vallée district. Built with 900 tonnes of wood, the building by Nexity-Ywood and Architecture-Studio will have 500m2 of solar panels

on the roof as well as hot and cold water supplied from the Eco-Vallée geothermal supply. It succeeds the Perspective office block in Bordeaux which has seven floors... but that will soon be

dwarfed by its near neighbour, the just-started 17-floor 57m Hyperion tower beside Saint-Jean rail station which will have 98 homes when finished in 2020.