Why There Are No Timber Skyscrapers

We seem to have hit a timber construction ceiling.
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Executive Producer and Narrator - Fred Mills
Producer - Adam Savage
Video Editing and Graphics - Thomas Canton
Special thanks to John Peronto, Thornton Tomasetti, Robert Schmitz and White Arkitekter. Additional footage and images courtesy of Adam Hunter, Anti Hamar, Brudder/naturallywood.com, C.D. Smith Construction, Cetus Baudevelopment GmbH, C.F. Møller Danmark A/S, Fast + Epp, Hilti, Joel Dittmer, Jonas Westling, Korb + Associates, Inc., LMN Architects, Martinsons, Moelven, Nate Vomhof, NY Studio, Patrick Degerman, SHoP Architects/BVN, Södra, Sumitomo Forestry Co. Ltd., Swedish Institute, University of California, Voll Arkitekter AS and OpenStreetMap Contributers (www.openstreetmap.org/copyright).
CORRECTION: The image that appears at 3:41 should be credited 'courtesy of Nate Vomhof'.
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[@Jay-nk6dm]

We don’t need to necessarily only use wood, we just need to drastically reduce concrete which is good. Additionally, most buildings in the world aren’t skyscrapers, so eliminating concrete from these shorter buildings is of paramount concern

[@TomorrowsBuild]

Completely agree. We have a whole video on that too (shameless plug) - kzbin.info/www/bejne/n5alh4GdgtCWptk

[@timmurphy5541]

I lived in Istanbul once and although I don't expect it to appeal to many architects, there is a kind of almost standard 5-story building style there which seems to house most people with shops underneath. I can see how they have copied the same thing over and over again with slightly different decoration possibly. It struck me that rather than artworks we might do better with a range of useful standard designs that provide a big, steady market for the makers of the CLT etc and that allow everyone in the construction industry to pick up skills that they can make use of more than once or twice.

[@paxundpeace9970]

Eliminating or reducing concrete is true and important. But what is the alternative? For many building it might be different kinds of stone or wood.

[@foxbat473]

we can also try to manufacture concrete which is eco friendly

[@VincentNacon]

Yeah... but what about the fire? The whole thing is gonna be doomed if one room catches on fire.

[@coffeecupwithtea]

I guess my question is "do we need to be able to build higher?" Esp in places like Europe, where even in large cities, the height of the buildings is rather low when compared to other cities around the world. Seems like timber could be the gold standard for renewable small to medium size buildings. Skyscrapers are cool, but are they even necessary?

[@DeWorDeR]

Burj Khalifa sized buildings aren't neccessary and kinda useless yes

[@jonathanramiro100yearsago]

In my opinion it's 50/50 skyscraper could fit hundred or more housing so less land will be used for housing so it will save more space,besides in dense growing country where a lot of people living low life their living conditions could be boosted insted of they living in broken ugly house they can live in better palace and the space used for their house can be turned into park or green space and because of high wind on high palace wind power can be used for ventilation using the power of the wind can be made into electricity or ventilation,wind blow from the top floor to bottom floor of building and with series of pipe it'll blow into their compartment replacing old air with new air without needing to use power for ventilation

[@RedShoesSmith]

@@jonathanramiro100yearsago The idea skyscrapers save space or save money is false. When additional fees and building requirements are added to final cost skyscrapers are more expensive than 2 shorting buildings. Looking at the most density populated cities in the world it is not New York or Manhattan, its paris, Barcelona, and Athens with consistent 5-7 story buildings throughout the entire city and not just a few tall buildings downtown. Also these cities have significantly skinnier roadway infrastructure.

[@neeljavia2965]

@@RedShoesSmith Skyscrapers are useful upto a limit

[@jonathanramiro100yearsago]

@@RedShoesSmith is more than 4 story tall building not a skyscraper? I know building with 3-4 floor build with low budget for housing is called stacked housing, but if it has more than 4 floor it's consider as skyscraper right? I heard somebody said for a buildig to be called skyscraper it's must be taller than 150 feet...? Or meter... probably...i don't really remember and to lazy to google it now

[@kenneth6102]

The problem with timber construction is that the manufacturing of the building material is not optimally standardised for economies of scale. With steel and concrete in conventional building methods, the steel bars and concrete mix is standardised and hence cheaper and therefore the go-to choice in the industry. Breakthrough innovation is probably not what we need at the moment, instead standardisation of parts and production scale of those are necessary. If we start building affordable 2-3 story houses and 3-8 story utility buildings with this technology, we'll be building skyscrapers with them in no time.

[@thomasr1051]

I agree with this.

[@durtykurty]

These are the typical pain points with new building strategies. They will work themselves out.

[@alexverdigris9939]

The chimp inside humans just want to build higher.

[@certifiedforkliftdriver9987]

Milwaukee is a very architecturally innovative city by North American standards. Really becoming a leader in mass timber with several other mass timber projects proposed and underway.

[@ulrichspencer]

I actually just recently moved into an apartment in an 8-storey mass-timber building. Not super related, but it is nice knowing my building is made out of the stuff.

[@roxanneconner7185]

I'm from wisconsin and I'm going to school to work in the forest industry! That's so cool that the tallest timber structure is in milwaukee, never knew that before! I love this channel because it gives me hope for the future :)

[@eaaeeeea]

Timber is so much more inviting building material than steel, concrete or glass. I really hope timber in large buildings takes off, if only to increase demand for sustainable forests.

[@purpleheadedmonster8735]

The opposite can also happen. I am sure if Asia or Africa start using timber as building materials all of their forest will be devastated.

[@gabedxbyul]

Enjoy the casual daily deadly infernos especially in countries that dont follow building codes like the US. Surfside condominium anyone

[@willblack8575]

@@gabedxbyul lol poor countries will not build with timber...they cant even build with concrete

[@oliverxjsxhjxhs4487]

@@purpleheadedmonster8735 yeah

[@LuccaA]

@@purpleheadedmonster8735 Actually, logging in the right way (selectively logging the right trees) makes for healthier, more diverse and more productive forests that extract more CO2. Culture needs to shift, but using timber doesn't necessarily lead to the devastation of forests.

[@JoelOman1980]

Been working with White Architects a couple of times in different projects. They're really professional. Thanks for this interesting video. Keep em coming!

[@alehaim]

I really would love to see timber become the default for most buildings. The fact that they look way nicer than concrete and feel more warm is already a big plus

[@HansDunkelberg1]

Timber facades get black rather quickly, if they aren't again and again painted. Such a problem won't matter much financially with skyscrapers, but it will matter financially with single-family homes. A black facade, also already one of a darker gray, transforms terribly much light into warmth. A completely blackened wooden facade also does not look pretty, any more.

[@key310GT]

@@HansDunkelberg1 on wooden facades you are right, but at scyscrapers most facades are made of glass. Wood gets only gray because of uv hurts the outide layers and gets washed down by rain. The remaing part is cellulose which is gray. If the wood is protected by glass you don't have this issue

[@eduardovit]

I live in Calgary AB, and when I graduated from AT my group and I designed a 10 story hybrid mass timber/ concrete hotel for our capstone project. The code is changing rapidly for canada. However, it’s still more expensive than steel and concrete to build.

[@juzoli]

Why it is more expensive? Material cost? Design cost? Need something special?

[@pauline4193]

I'm not sure you should tell people you're from Calgary, I've been to Calgary and everyone was drunk or high on drugs. Even the waiter at Boston pizza she was clearly doing coke it was all on her nose

[@tritoneko]

@@pauline4193 I think that's just the food service industry as a whole. I've heard many things about the food industry in any city. Lived in Calgary for about 4 years and it was one of the best cities I've lived in, but I also lived in suburb, so many that was a factor to being 'shielded' xD

[@andyherle]

@@pauline4193 what part of calgary did you Go to 😂

[@eduardovit]

@@juzoli timber is really expensive right now, and because of the building code, for most occupancies you have to fire rate all the columns or just make them thicker for the char layer. That makes people not want to invest in mass timber because developers want to show the wood and if you have to cover you might as well not use it. Most people are waiting for the code to develop before they spend their money on it.

[@dnoit9251]

Timber looks so much better as buildings than concrete and steel so I'm looking forward to this new wave of timber buildings.

[@pauline4193]

What about the termites then huh?

[@Samuel_J1]

The tallest tree in the world, The General Sherman, is 84m tall, so they've done really well to get this high. I wonder what technology will allow them to go realistically higher. Eddie: I stand corrected. Hyperion is the tallest at 116m. Gen Sherman is the chunky boi. So we still have 15m to go to beat the natural record.

[@nonamedpleb]

Not tallest. General Sherman (giant sequoia) was famous for being big. Largest by trunk volume. The tallest tree is a coast redwood by the name Hyperion which was over 100m tall.

[@carlosandleon]

the height of the tree is limited by it's ability to suck water to height. Which is a fundamentally capped by physics.

[@Samuel_J1]

@@nonamedpleb thanks for the correction. I did a very poor Google search...

[@alecc4137]

Thanks man this is a very interesting statistic especially when comparing it to our progress in building taller with wood

[@Fenthule]

@@carlosandleon good ole capillary action!

[@iafozzac]

Most people don't live in skyscrapers but in 3 to 20 stories buildings, today's technology is more than enough to cover those kinds of buildings, market availability of quality timber and people's trust in the technology are the two things that are going to slow the spread of timber buildings the most

[@duncanwilliams4630]

This channel is so good I've shared it on LinkedIn and linked to this video in a company blog I'm writing. Thank you!

[@dragonskunkstudio7582]

How much wood in the construction would make it "a proper timber skyscraper" to qualify? Base is concrete? Steel crossmembers or beams? How much wood would have to be mixed with other material to be considered a wood composite?

[@Hopscotchlemonadespritz]

The concepts for Japan & Australia look incredible! Existing structures built using the approved timber-materials are quite fetching as well.

[@ThisIsntmyrealnameGoogle]

Gotta say, i LOVE LOVE LOVE videos on wooden skyscrapers and hope you continue to update every time a record is broken. I have no idea if we will break 150-200 meters in my life time but I am excited to see the news from this channel first if it does happen!

[@ratchetman1193]

It's really cool seeing Ascent featured in one of your videos! I'm from Milwaukee and one of my friends actually lives in Ascent. Being so close to Chicago, you don't really see Milwaukee talked about very often.

[@cdsmithconstruction]

Cheers and thank you for bringing greater awareness to the benefits of mass timber construction through this channel. We look forward to sharing and have already embedded this video onto our website as a great source of information. It was our pleasure to provide drone footage of the exciting Ascent project. Adam Savage was so great at reaching out to pull everything together with us and Korb + Associates Architects. Thank you!

[@badartgallery9322]

My new favorite channel. Interesting, smart, and fun.

[@marksletters]

Thank you for the vid !

[@50shadesofskittles9]

My new fav channel!

[@MiaMakesThings]

We really can’t rule anything out anymore ! There’s so much happening and so many people working on amazing projects such as timber skyscrapers ! I think an important thing to keep in mind is doing the life cycle assessments of such projects to understand where we can reduce emissions and how we can live in better harmony with the systems that keep us alive and allow us to thrive! Great video as always !

[@SirDiamondNips]

So what happens if the interior starts to rot? Perhaps there's a hard to reach pipe leake that goes unnoticed and causes the wood to decay. I'm genuinely curious about that.

[@NickValinski]

Saw it out, glue a new piece in? Depending on if the strength is needed in a certain direction, the cut joint may have to be a scarf joint or kind of puzzle pieced in like traditional wood joinery repairs.

[@paxundpeace9970]

Put in water or mostiure sensors

[@diamondproductions2]

Hopefully they built redundancies for that

[@trezapoioiuy]

Rot? The timber they use is treated against rotting.

[@noronhawarren]

Also checkout 25 King in Brisbane. The Sydney hybrid building will be 40 levels and 180m tall. Look up Atlassian Sydney HQ.

[@R.-.]

How do you "fully protect" wood from fire? Any physical object that disturbs the fireproof coating will expose the wood and allow it to catch fire. I hope they fit sprinkler systems as standard.

[@Fenthule]

the wood itself IS the fireproof coating. the beams and walls have extra material that's essentially sacrificial. like it says in the video, the purpose is for the wood to char the surface layers, but it can't burn through to the core and weaken the structural integrity. believe it or not charred wood is one of the best fire barriers out there. there's an old fireproofing technique that's been getting more popular again lately, where you intentionally char the exterior layers, then seal it with oil. not only does the black charring effect look REALLY cool, how it kind of reflects light and almost shimmers slightly, but it's SUPER fire resistant. like could save your cabin from a small brushfire kinda resistant.

[@diamondproductions2]

When large pieces of wood get burnt the outer layer chars and forms a layer of carbon which absorbs the heat and protects the wood from underneath

[@knightrider693]

All new multi habitible buildings have to have sprinklers and like the video stated these are engineered to and have to prove fire survivability before ok'd

[@DDRWakaLaka]

cross laminated timber

[@splaw120]

The char concept is marketing wank. Put a log on a campfire and see for yourself. The reality is the fire rating. The longer the better and hopefully measured in hours, not minutes. Eventually fire rescue crews will abandon the building and retreat to a safe distance before it becomes structurally unsafe and falls down. In an ideal world they would have had enough time to rescue all the occupants.

[@maxivy]

Great video as always

[@JonasGraf00]

Very interesting topic!

[@paxundpeace9970]

Wood and the old conventional brick or stone building have a similar problem at a certain high exceeding 60 or 80 meters the pillars or beams on the lower level have to become so massive that they limit those floors.

[@phodder]

I like the hybrid approach!

[@knocturna9731]

Thank you to TheB1M channels for fueling my interest in cross laminated timber. Mid rise buildings are superior to high rise, imo.

[@coryb7404]

Shout out to Milwaukee Wisconsin

[@arnepianocanada]

You are a terrific speaker. Superb voice, accent and measured pacing make a great fit for analytical-type topics.

[@Nill757]

Many conmen are fine speakers

[@diamondproductions2]

Timber looks very nice hopefully more buildings get built like this

[@siahsargus2013]

One of the downsides of this loosening of regulations on mass timber high rises is the proliferation of cheap five over ones in every city I’ve been to. They mostly aren’t clt, and disturbingly many of them aren’t fully glulam either. I mean, with full honesty, those things are just a bunch of paneling to make their stick frame construction look more substantial than it really is. I really hate how it seems a half dozen developers had plans to plop one down the second it became legal to build like that. Gives me the creeps. And these buildings, despite being marketed as “luxury apartments” are absolutely not built to last. It’s cool to see what the high end projects are doing with timber, but the cheap massed produced midrises that are being built right now are hideous flint boxes that would have been better made if they choose to actually spend money on good material.

[@JMiskovsky]

Well it is ticking time bomb. With what will happen. Imagine leaking pipe of plumbing on wooden stick framed house. It is not going to last. Also fire protection is done often in proper manner.

[@elijahtremblay8817]

My favorite place to study at Umass Amherst was the John Olver design building. From my understanding, it was the largest wooden structure by area when built in 2017. The atmosphere inside of one of these buildings is absolutely unparalleled to the artificial reinforced concrete structures we’ve considered attractive living spaces for so long.

[@michaeldaigle7207]

Man i haven't been to amherst in almost 10 years now. Thing i remember the most was the steel drums guy that always seemed to be playing somewhere near antonio's. That new building sounds cool. I might have to go back and visit sometime, see how things have changed, get some pizza then head over to south hadley for some wings.

[@fqwgads]

May need to build wider at the base if stability is a concern

[@Judah132]

Deux Ex Machina - I need to do a presentation on the Skellefteå Cultural Center on Thursday. I'm so glad I've stumbled on to this, cheers.

[@TomorrowsBuild]

Good luck!

[@Judah132]

@@TomorrowsBuild Ty!

[@taylorchaney8316]

Cool to see Milwaukee doing this. I think the Rust Belt of the US is really best poised for new development like this

[@akshaymc8317]

good vid !

[@timmmahhhh]

2:21 "although local variations do apply." City of Chicago: hold my amendments.

[@mk1st]

Going to have to take a drive to Milwaukee to check out Ascent. I had no idea this was happening right in my area.

[@ReasonableRadio]

I feel like we can reframe the question. It may be difficult and expensive to build skyscrapers out of wood, but the midrise buildings we would like to use to fill out density with better urban zoning especially in NA can absolutely be built with wood. Canada's forestation is increasing due to climate change, so I'm hoping that economies of scale and professional experience will make building those midrises easier and cheaper, which could help to solve the housing crises in Toronto, Vancouver, etc without excessive carbon emissions in doing so.

[@coleeck1150]

I am very curious what the sound quality is like in these units when compared with their concrete brethren. The US already has some of the thinnest walls in the world and I am curious if this has any sort of negative consequences sound wise.

[@PaulChoix55]

Walls are usually hollow wood structures with gypse sheets, and sometimes isolation in the hollow part. Or in more industrial buildings, walls have 2x4 thin steel C sections that support the gypse. If you have a massive CLT or gluelam wall between two units, rather than either a thin fire-retardant concrete or some cheap isolation, the massive wood wall will provide way more tranquility. Possibly more than equivalent concrete, the stiffness of the concrete will propagate low freqencies, and I would be lead to believe the wood to have some level of dampening. Take my opinion with a grain of salt, i'm studying engineering, i'm not licenced yet hehe

[@jaygraham9684]

I instantly thought of this. Every shared living space built out of wood I've had noise transfer issues. An issue that not many people think about till they experience it themselves.

[@afrye51]

These wood buildings looks so clean, especially those ceilings. I thought I preferred the concrete/glass look, but no more.

[@me.atul10]

Beginning of my wood processing factory right now. ✅

[@Defender78]

super tall wooden buildings sound great on paper, but fire though

[@name4601]

I think this limit at about 85 meters is good. Once buildings start getting too tall they become less practical and more expensive with larger foundations, more elevators, increased support, and higher unit and building costs. This 85ish meter cap also allows for a more balanced skyline with no one building standing above the rest and, aesthetically, makes a city look more pleasing. Examples of this are places like Barcelona, Paris, Amsterdam. Compared to cities like London, Rotterdam, and Brussels, they are orderly and neat with the latter cities being chaotic and messy with skyscrapers jutting across the skyline competing with one another for height. This can even be seen now in New York where it used to work having so many skyscrapers because there was a time when building with steel and stone limited heights. Now, these supertall skyscrapers are going up overshadowing the other buildings in heights and destroying the once fairly even skyline. These supertalls are also plagued by inconveniences like: taking 5 minutes to reach the bottom floor, massive wind sway, exorbitant construction costs, cheap construction, and just the phycological effects of being so removed from society on the ground; you don't really get that sense of community and locality when you're living 100+ meters above the ground. I think the question is more should we built taller rather than can we build taller.

[@Freshbott2]

Timber towers are cool but if we want to eliminate most of the waste of concrete and steel we need to get the low hanging fruit. There are exponentially more structures as you go down in size. In Vancouver it’s so normal to build 4-5 story apartment buildings with timber no one even thinks about it. In Australia EVERYTHING is concrete

[@ich0halt1]

I love me some timber buildings 👌

[@ToastGhost]

This is very similar to what's happening in the rollercoaster industry atm, originally in the late 1800s right up until the late 1970s like 90% of rollercoasters were wooden and stood at about the 70ft - 100ft mark but once a company called Arrow started using tubular steel ride heights and lengths exploded all over the world in a period in the mid 90's - early 2000s know as the coaster wars where theme parks rapid and aggressive expansions directly competed with each other for world records until they were halted by the 2008 recession. Then in 2011 a company called Rocky Mountain Construction debuted their hybrid coaster model combining wood and steel at Six Flags Over Texas on the New Texas Giant rollercoaster. Fast forward to now and these hybrid coasters are all over the world and pushing 250ft tall with rides like Steel Vengeance in Ohio, Iron Gwazi in Florida and Zadra in Poland. It's a really interesting topic with its ties to construction I think it would fit in well if you covered it here or on The B1M.

[@DeWorDeR]

Why not use steel structure, but wooden outer layer. Skycraper needs to have some kind of steelbeam for support if builded from wood i believe.

[@TheRetardle]

There's a tall new wooden residential building almost done with construction in Amsterdam. It is set to be 73 metres tall comprised of 21 floors, it's called 'HAUT Amsterdam' if you're curious.

[@dannyhughes4889]

I just saw a Video on KZbin about an 8 or so Level Apartment building recently constructed mainly from Timber. A good start but Chinese manufactures are worried that there will be reduced demand for their Plastic Coated Re-Bar.

[@glike2]

A Lego like building system factory mass produced with Timber is needed to bring costs down. Steel wrapped and bonded timber might also have some synergy benefits, fire protection, buckling optimized, surface damage resistance.

[@plxton]

My favourite thing about timber is that I spent the last decade thinking about how new buildings can move away from the idea of glass or gardens, and it never even crossed my mind to use wood without cladding. It creates a delicate strength whilst looking clean (at least at first) and healthy.

[@HansDunkelberg1]

Yes, timber looks clean at first, but it quickly gets black. Then you can install a giant air conditioner and fry the pedestrians.

[@jh4684]

How are the vocs from laminate timber buildings? People have raised concerns over laminate flooring. How do they solve this problem with these buildings?

[@_SpamMe]

What's the glue made off in CLT/glulam? Because I have a sneaking suspicion that that's a bit of an issue if you want to be oil-free ...

[@smackmack92]

Shot in the dark but how do you get into this kind of business? Love your videos they have me wanting to make a career change into some form of development.

[@johnstelluto]

this guy narrates all construction channels on youtube

[@Dr.LongMonkey]

Looks so much more expensive than a steel building

[@JMac7991]

I looked into the sustainability of various options as part of a RIBA Stage 2 report from a structural engineering perspective not that long ago. For the scheme we were looking at, timber actually came off worse from a sustainability point of view compared with concrete and steel. First was the volume of material required to achieve the same stiffness in beam and column elements. CLT and Glulam options required more material than their rivals. So although the kgCO2/kg of material was less for timber, it was offset by the volume required. Second, was fire. The building required a 2h fire rating and the treatments and materials being looked at were not exactly environmentally friendly in their own right. Thirdly, cradle to grave analysis was also unfavourable. Although timber construction kg to kg seems more sustainable (though note the first point above), sourcing timber is not exactly a zero carbon endeavour. It is not like steel or concrete where you are mining otherwise inert materials out the ground, harvesting trees removes the carbon sink. The volume of timber use in the project would not be able to be replaced within the lifespan of the building given the speed at which trees grow. Forthly, raw timber is not suitable in its own right. Standard C24 timber would not be suitable for a project that we were looking, or the video alluded to, so CLT or Glulam was considered. From the analysis we carried out, the resins and glues used to bind CLT and Glulam together are in their own right toxic to the environment, albeit inert when insitu. This leads to the fifth and final point we found - grave. Timber in the form of CLT and Glulam is not currently recyclable, and does not biodegrade in the same way as raw timber does. So unless we are able to re-engineer the materials to be reused on other projects, then they'll just be sitting on landfill. In fairness, this is a problem all materials have, concrete especially, but steel less so. Happy to discuss any of these points in case our previous studies have not shown something out there that could've been considered etc.

[@maasvermeulen691]

You should check out The Dutch Mountains in the Netherlands! Its from clt and 130 meters high🌇

[@grzegorzkapica7930]

I hope soon there will come great pressure to build from timber.

[@bartvrhijn]

Stronger than steel? That is insane!

[@Nill757]

Because it’s bs.

[@atechnews3221]

What about moisture? How do you protect against it, on the exterior and interior?

[@JMiskovsky]

Probable as any American house. Cladding. Like Vinil which caches fire. Or something which rots like soft wood.

[@bobyoung1698]

I am pleased to see timber playing a more important role in the construction of high-rise structures. Wood will give designers new vistas to explore. Wood should show remarkable performance in seismically active areas. Wood should work well with more traditional high-rise materials such as steel, with metal providing additional strength in areas such as lateral stress-bearing. And wood is a renewable resource, making it more affordable in the long run.

[@TheOtherNEO]

Using timber for construction is also a good carbon capture and sequestration move. Capture carbon from the air and seal it down in a building structure.

[@Madraxoo]

8:47 look like a timber version of Lego Skyscraper in Thailand

[@screamingbirdheart]

What if we use graphene in the glue between the laminations of wood? How much more would the beams be able to handle? And could they be made smaller, with te same loud capacity?

[@westregent66]

Shout out to Milwaukee 👌

[@stevengalloway8052]

👏 Excellent video about timber. Let's just hope we'll never actually have to say "TIMBERRR" if one of these buildings fall... 😆

[@moose5.9]

How does the weather effect the wood before the building is done?

[@Nill757]

No problem as long as the wood never gets wet.

[@moose5.9]

@@Nill757 it's not just going to stop raining for months lol

[@Nill757]

@@moose5.9 I know. I was poking fun at weather susceptibility of wood

[@ralfbelov7760]

Wood skyscrapers are literal nightmare if fire happens.

[@robing8705]

Currently the highest timber skyscraper is planned in Winterthur (Switzerland), which should be built by 2026 and 100m high with 32 stories. Anyone interested can search for "Rocket and Tigerli"

[@natevomhof9780]

Hey! It's my photo at 3:43 :)

[@nagato76875]

There are plans for a 170m high timber tower build in Kerpen, Germany.

[@alejandrocervantes1527]

Yay Milwaukee has the biggrst timber tower 😅 and the building is amazing the ascent 😊

[@lupus7297]

100m timber houses are on the horizon like the woho in Berlin. for even bigger buildings securing that much wood is probably a challenge. clt production has to scale up massively i imagine.

[@nawwk79]

Building a timber skyscraper using concrete core is like someone saying she’s a vegetarian but eats bacon.

[@francesco5254]

Limited height is really not a concern. Most of the buildings in the world don't even get close to 80 meters. I hope timber will be the new construction standard soon. The impact on emissions reduction would be massive!

[@TheMelbournelad]

What about something made of carbon fibre/nano tubes etc for the require stiffness of steel for the hybrid model ?

[@Asher7466]

Carbon nanotubes only have a high tensile strength, so they could make a super strong cable, but they aren't suitable to carry a load under compression like where you would use steel or concrete.

[@johannesnm9706]

Does anyone know if bamboo is used for anything but scaffolding?

[@theonlylolking]

Exposed timber like this makes it look like Minecraft.

[@chrismoyler]

Here in the UK, timber buildings and timber facings look so beautiful when they are erected. Then, when they have aged, they all look a very dreary and unappealing grey! I have become accustomed to being highly disappointed with UK wood buildings and wood finishings How long, before everything starts to rot? How can water be kept out of the joints? Do these wood buildings need to be regularly coated/treated, if they are not to deteriorate? Interestingly, I live in a Victorian house, built in 1870. Recently, while working on the roof bargeboards, and also the timber lintels, they were in perfect condition, almost zero rot, after 150 years. They smelled like cedar? The wood was definitely pink-red Thank you Chris Moyler

[@killerthoughts6150]

What about termites?

[@Dubswitcher]

Nobody: Thumbnail: "Don't be racist, I am a building!"

[@oleksandrbyelyenko435]

I live in Costa Del Sol Occidental and I have never seen new technologies on the sites. Except distantly controlled cranes maybe... No forwarded materials or tools. Is Spain that behind other countries?

[@TheRusschannel]

Have you lived in a Wood place versa a Concrete place? Sound is HUGE issue between them, Wood is VERY noisy!

[@prilep5]

Any idea about demolishing “recycling”

[@smffofts]

How long are these expected to last?

[@bruhmania7359]

Timbers strengths to weight ratio is better than steel in compression

[@ChosenOne6666]

International Building Standards allow up to six stories without using steel metal support.

[@user-ut2bw2zp4h]

BILLONS DOLLAR

[@tammyhumphrey8679]

The way things are going nowdays shocks me alot

[@mreric7265]

Things are getting better everyday,but can't still understand why people are turning it the other way round

[@fredrick5207]

I don't really understand what's going on

[@steven2828]

Lol, i laugh you guys cause you're really missing alot

[@hhydar883]

My question is that will it stay sustainable, if the timber buildings are adopted on mass scale. Afterall the sustainable forests from where the wood is being extracted have a limit.

[@grantmccoy6739]

So the building won't just burn to the ground if there's a fire, but what happens afterwards? Do they have to replace all of the scalded beams? Would you need to do any structural rebuilding for steel or concrete? Also, how is cutting down trees sustainable or green? Aren't trees better at scrubbing CO2 as fully grown and mature trees, rather than just during growing? If the key motivation is CO2 emissions, wouldn't it be better to just offset it by planting more plants? Don't get me wrong, it's beautiful, but it presents some downsides that might make it impractical, especially with huge skyscrapers.

[@artjom01]

I think investors don't want to risk building higher timber skyscrapers. And I bet it is a challenge to find an insurance company to take the risks for a proper fee.

[@mubbasherniaz8082]

Could we build a concrete to wood building? Better than a full concrete right?

[@Celis.C]

This is coming from a complete layman's perspective, but does carbon(fiber etc.) hold any potential for construction?

[@laeamminlakana-matt5692]

It is a great material, but it's difficult to source in the appropriate quantity. I am not an construction engineer yet and I don't really have a thing for skyscrapers, but I'd imagine skyscrapers use it for stiffening, because it's incredibly light, stiff and tough. Graphene (the miracle material that's been hyped up for like 30 years now with very little result) is finally being deployed in the UK as an additive to concrete, to make a certain structure strong enough to not be braced with steel, as load bearing concrete structures usually need to be. Graphene would have a future in this for sure, if it is possible to produce it to the necessary extent. But prices are important, the reason concrete is so common as a material is that it is near impossible to challenge it on price.

[@Celis.C]

@@laeamminlakana-matt5692 those are some nice insights, thanks for sharing!