How wood high-rises could save the planet

[LuckyTheDog]

From England and Sweden to Canada and Australia, a new breed of high-rises has started to pop up on skylines and win praise from architects, developers and environmentalists in the era of climate change.

There’s the iconic nine-story Murray Grove in London, built in 2009; the upscale Forté apartment complex built in 2012 in Melbourne’s revitalized Docklands precinct; a recently completed 95-foot design center tower in Prince George, British Columbia; and a dozen or so others in this emerging genre. And plans are in development for a 30-story residential and commercial tower in Vancouver and a 34-story skyscraper in Stockholm.

They’re all made of an advanced building material that's a natural for the age of sustainability and is catching on with governments and developers seeking an alternative to steel-and-concrete buildings, which contribute up to one-third of the world’s greenhouse gases: wood.

MORE HERE: http://wonkynewsnerd.com/wood-high-rises-save-planet/

[JesterCS]

1. sooo

instead of steel and concrete. we cut down MORE trees to make it more eco-friendly..... makes sense

[NickB79]

2. The authors assume the wood used is harvested sustainably

And in many parts of the world, forested land has actually expanded greatly in the past century. New York State, once largely deforested, is now over 50% woodland as farmland has been abandoned back to nature. The same goes for my state (Minnesota). The North Woods used to look like this once the pine loggers got through with it at the end of the 19th century:

Today it looks like this:

Obviously, though, if you're clearcutting rainforest, it won't be sustainable.

[LuckyTheDog]

3. I guess the idea is also to plant more forests

Growing trees traps carbon. Making steel releases it.

[951-Riverside]

4. They are more than welcome to live in one of those deathtraps n/t

[Jgarrick]

5. Echh. I can't imagine wanting to live in any high-rise, regardless of what it's made from.

Give me a home in the mountains surrounded by a forest any day!

[NaturalHigh]

6. It's definitely an interesting idea...

but those things seem scary to me. I like to live a little closer to the ground anyway.

[hunter]

7. Why?

My utopia doesn't have any high rises. Or landlords. Or mortgage companies.

[LeftyMom]

8. Only if you don't think fire, earthquakes or other disasters are real concerns.

What happens to a 30 story wood residential tower when some idiot in the third floor leaves their stove on a bit too long?

[Sen. Walter Sobchak]

10. Sorry, Message 9 was supposed to be a reply to this.

[Sen. Walter Sobchak]

9. High density wood construction sure works well where I live

I don't think Calgary goes more than a couple of months without a shitbox condo development burning down.

[laundry_queen]

11. Here too.

In Edmonton. Same thing.

Not a fan.

[Sen. Walter Sobchak]

12. Coming from somewhere with really heavy handed building codes...

Calgary was an eyeopener.

It seems like Canadian cities are all reading from the 1965 Edition of "How To Build a Slum", it seems like the prevailing urban planning philosophy for Canadian cities is "You can never have enough investor owned, poorly built, high density housing." combined with "It doesn't matter how terrible public transit is if parking is expensive enough"

When I first started working in Calgary I remember looking out my office window and thinking, "Boy, we sure are close to the river..."

[laundry_queen]

13. It's so dependent on the province

building codes are quite a bit better in some parts of BC. Of course those are more recent with the discovery of the earthquake risk, so there are still crappy buildings built before that. But building a house there was quite a bit different from building in Alberta. It seems they are more interested in building for energy efficiency and warmth than building for strength or durability (or safety for that matter).

Where are you from originally?

[Sen. Walter Sobchak]

14. Orange County

I was born in Santa Ana, I own a home in Costa Mesa. I have been in Calgary since 2006 but before that I was working in Ottawa.

[laundry_queen]

15. ah. That makes sense.

I heard California had the strictest building codes around. BC is trying to catch up (the earthquake risk wasn't taken seriously until recently). Alberta has nothing to worry about except the odd tornado, so they are overly lax, imo.