Building taller structures from wood is mostly a fringe practice of architecture that is slowly becoming more popular.
The tallest standing wooden apartment building in the world, reaching 10 stories high, was finished this year in Melbourne, Australia.
Building taller structures from wood is mostly a fringe practice of architecture that is slowly becoming more popular.
Even the Chicago architectural firm Skidmore, Owings & Merrill that is famous for their steel and concrete skyscrapers, like One World Trade Center, is now working towards creating tall buildings made from wooden materials called mass timber.
Mass timber is thick columns and slabs made up of smaller wood that has been laminated together.
The firm has envisioned a residential 42 story tower concept made of 70 percent wood.
The majority of the remaining structural materials, including the foundation, are concrete.
The mixed material building is an innovative structure, just like the 1966 Skidmore, Owings & Merrill skyscraper design for the Plaza on DeWitt in Chicago, that the design is based on.
The use of wooden materials would be more sustainable compared to using concrete and steel, but current building codes that limit wooden structure to four stories or less would have to be revised.
