Much like the surge in interest in electric cars over the past few years, the benefits of using timber frame suppliers as part of the future of green construction have also generated a lot of interest.
Timber is potentially carbon-negative when sourced and used correctly, can be prefabricated for less waste and takes far less time to use as a construction material. These are just some of the practical arguments in favour of a mass timber construction future.
This interest has only been magnified with the figurative and literal rise of so-called plyscrapers, towers made of mass timber such as Ascent MKE, the current tallest timber building in the world.
However, a proposed London timber skyscraper set to be built in the heart of one of the most famous brutalist housing developments in the world could more than triple the height of ascent, and could potentially become not only the tallest wooden building in Europe but also the entire world.
Oakwood Timber Tower
First proposed in 2016 by PLP Architecture in partnership with the University of Cambridge, Oakwood Timber Tower received a more solid and serious proposal in 2019 as a plyscraper that would tower over all others at the time.
Its planned location, in the centre of the famous concrete Barbican housing development, was a statement of purpose; whilst concrete was at one point seen as the future of construction, that spot has been replaced by timber frame construction.
Whilst the use of timber for tall construction projects in London is relatively rare, it is not without precedent; the first modern timber tower was constructed in Hackney, East London and immediately made an impact with its extensive and successful use of cross-laminated timber.
Oakwood Timber Tower would not use the same honeycomb structure as Murray Grove did, but instead used a more overt timber framework that in concept art was particularly striking given its sheer height, to the point that it was given the nickname “The Toothpick” in reference to The Shard.
The former London Bridge Tower is the tallest building in London, but the Oakwood Timber Tower would be just ten metres smaller than it and no less striking.
Wood is a lighter material better suited to prefabrication, allowing for the construction time of such a large building to be cut by a third, which means that once construction starts and assuming it is as complicated to construct as The Shard, could mean a completion time of around a year.
This construction phase is far in the distance, however. As of 2024, the building is still in the research phase, and there have been discussions about how the building could be constructed in such a way as to maximise the advantages of the material and face the forces and challenges all skyscrapers do.
There are also purported health advantages to using wood, particularly when it is a visible structural feature, which has also aided the adoption of the material for building owners and employers hoping to bring people back into offices.
Time will tell what happens when a final proposal is submitted, and the project enters the planning stage. However, if Oakwood wants to be the tallest timber building in the world, time is very much of the element.
W350 Project
Another massive plyscraper currently in the early stages of development is the W350 Project in Tokyo, Japan, one that is set to be completed in 2041 and would be the largest timber building in the world by a considerable margin.
Designed by Nikken Sekkei and set to be constructed by Sumitomo Forestry as a way to symbolically turn the city into a forest, the W350 Project has fascinated the industry for years not merely for its rather poetic ambitions but for the practical benefits that come with using wood as a material.
Japan is a country that faces far more seismic activity and earthquakes than Great Britain, something that can potentially devastate more traditional construction materials such as brick and concrete.
Wood, by contrast, is inherently far more capable of absorbing and managing earthquakes and has already been used to incredible effect at the New National Stadium in Tokyo, the site of the 2020 Olympic Games
The technology and architectural knowledge to create flexible wooden structures with this purpose in mind date as far back as the Pombaline buildings constructed in response to the great Lisbon Earthquake of 1755.
These buildings had an internal wooden frame built within the masonry that helped to make them both fire and earthquake-resistant, and a modern timber tower would take this concept even further.
There are so many variables in the construction of both W350 and Oakwood in the form of planning regulations and potential architectural changes, that time will tell when either of them start to break ground and make history.