Submitted by: The Two Sides Team February 20, 2018

Sumitomo Forestry, a Japanese company is planning to build the world’s tallest wooden skyscraper to mark its 350th anniversary in 2041.

Only 10% of the 70-storey W350 tower would be steel, combined with about 180,000 cubic metres of indigenous wood which will make up for 90% of the building. This will limit the carbon footprint of the building as the wood will store the carbon instead of emitting it into the atmosphere.

There will be about 8,000 homes, with trees and foliage on balconies at every level, creating a pleasant space for plants and living organisms and in turn contributing to the biodiversity of the city.

In doing so, the company will be on track to meet its wider objective to create environmentally-friendly and timber utilising cities and maintain the livelihood of the forest ecosystem.

The internal beams and braces of the building will have a mixture of steel and wood and will be able to withstand the regular earthquakes that hit the region.

The projected cost of the building is about 600bn yen (£4.02bn; $5.6bn), about twice the cost of a conventional skyscraper of the same size. However, Sumitomo says it expects costs to fall before the building’s 2041 scheduled completion date due to technological advances.

Fire-resistance is obviously one key factor. However, cross-laminated timber (CLT), a building material that is becoming more common, is designed to be fire resistant and unlike steel, remains more structurally stable when subjected to high temperatures.

Read the full press release here.

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