Reaching dizzying heights of 86 meters and a project planned to surpass this at 180 meters in height, timber construction appears to be gatecrashing the compact city’s party by breaking down a major barrier: that of height.
Using the right material in the right place is essential for building the city of the future without wasting resources. And it appears that wood is taking a central place in this subtle mix. It aligns with a more modular, more compact city design, especially thanks to its capacity for building upwards.
Its sustainability credentials are also very attractive for urban landscapes looking to decarbonize. Opportunities for inventing new ways of using the material are just waiting to be explored.
And this observation prompted Leonard to imagine four predictions for the near future for wood in the city.
Cellulose all dressed up: wood reinvented
What if the future of wood lay in its hybridization?
This is something a certain number of startups are betting on, using their chemistry expertise to invent wood-based biomaterials.
Take Inventwood, Woodoo or Strong by Form, who are modifying the structure of wood to offer products presented as more resistant than steel. Others, like TimberRoc, are playing with wood to create an unexpected mix called wood-based concrete.
Composed of 80% wood aggregates incorporated with cement and water, the latter can be made using recycled sawmill waste and has a rather insignificant carbon footprint.
In a similar vein, Sprwood combines recycled wood fibers with a binder from slag waste to make creative interior wall paneling designs.
Even more unusual is CarbonScape’s sustainable wood “biographite” for electric vehicle batteries.
It appears wood’s future may not always be in the form of panels, beams and floors!
Wooden resilience
Shinbashira is the central pillar at the core of traditional Japanese pagodas. It is a key element to this type of building’s resilience to earthquakes. Wood’s flexibility has always been a significant advantage to withstanding earthquakes, and recent structures – even tall ones – demonstrate the same qualities.
The high ductility of wood also makes it a good ally against strong winds. Air New Zealand’s new Hangar 4 construction, which is set to become one of the largest single-span timber arch structures in the world, can move up to around 300mm in extreme conditions!
Like the reed in La Fontaine’s famed fable, the wooden city of the future is perhaps the one that learns to bend so as not to break.
Wood where you least expect it
Often presented as a traditional material and regarded as warm and comfortable, wood is reinventing itself as a high-performance material
As such, it is popping up in various different sectors where you wouldn’t necessarily expect to find it.
LignoSat is a small satellite developed by the University of Tokyo and JAXA. It has just arrived on the International Space Station, where it will carry out a series of tests. If these tests are conclusive, wooden satellites could help limit light pollution in the sky, as well as providing a “biodegradable” alternative capable of burning up when re-entering the atmosphere.
Meanwhile, back down on Earth… Modvion’s wind turbine towers are made of laminated veneer lumber, which could help limit emissions created when building wind power infrastructure.
Meanwhile, for more everyday items, Renovo’s wooden bicycle frames and Bamboocycles bamboo-based bikes are proving to flex some sustainability muscle. This rediscovery of wood is attracting interest from the research sector too, which is looking to enhance its properties.
Researchers at MIT have found that the interiors of pine and ginkgo trees can be used to make low-tech water filters that are particularly effective against E. coli and rotavirus.
This is only the start of pushing wood out of its comfort zone, so it should continue to surprise us in the years to come!
A future-proof forest
What will be the major future challenges for rational forest management?
While many unknowns remain, a number of themes are becoming clear. For trees as well as for humans, the climate exodus is a reality to which we must adapt.
With the Giono project, the ONF is looking to help tree species threatened by the risk of extinction by preparing to migrate them elsewhere. Not only does this technique help preserve carbon sequestration capacity, but it could also be implemented alongside a carbon credits method.
This is what La Belle Forêt is developing, by encouraging companies to get involved in protecting forests using the polluter-pays model. Whatever solutions are implemented, forest monitoring is an issue that is likely to arise rather pressingly.
The use of LiDAR – via solutions such as Yellow Scan or the national project led by IGN aiming to map the entire French territory – constitutes a small revolution in identifying tree species and quantifying forest resources.
Regardless of whether innovation is ecosystemic or technological, it presents a major lever for the future of forestry.
