Architects working with mass timber should cease emulating concrete buildings by specializing in peak and kind, and discover a new option to measure success, says skilled Andrew Waugh in an interview for our Timber Revolution collection.
“Now we have been framing the success of timber throughout the narrative of concrete, however we have to step out and discover our personal path,” stated London-based architect and timber champion Waugh.
He believes that making buildings out of wooden somewhat than concrete requires architects to take a essentially totally different method to design.
“If you design in concrete, usually you provide you with the constructing earlier than you consider the way you construct it,” he informed Dezeen. “That course of wants to vary.”
“With timber, it’s worthwhile to take into consideration how the constructing will rise up and the person items that maintain it collectively. That is what generates the shape,” he stated.
“Now we perceive the engineering advantages”
As a founding director of Waugh Thistleton Architects, Waugh has been growing buildings with cross-laminated timber (CLT) constructions for 15 years.
These embody pioneering housing initiatives Murray Grove and Dalston Works, inbuilt 2009 and 2017 respectively, plus the lately accomplished Black & White Constructing for office supplier The Workplace Group.
The studio now builds nearly solely in wooden. Each undertaking is designed with a component-based method and engineers are consulted from early on.
“At first, we had been positively making concrete buildings out of timber,” the architect stated.
“Now we perceive the engineering advantages of the fabric, in addition to the sensory advantages, so the timber turns into a very important a part of the structure,” he continued.
“It’s a totally different mindset, but it surely would not take us any longer.”
Timber skyscrapers are “bullshit”
Particularly, Waugh is skeptical of the rising pattern for timber high-rises and proposals to construct tall skyscrapers out of wooden, questioning whether or not they make finest use of the fabric.
“Structure practices all around the world are popping out with these CGIs of supertall buildings, colored in brown with an arrow that claims timber,” he stated.
“It is bullshit, as a result of if you are going to construct a tall constructing in timber, you continue to should fill it stuffed with concrete to verify it would not wave round.”
In response to knowledge from the Council on Tall Buildings and City Habitat, the 5 tallest timber buildings on the earth had been all accomplished previously 4 years.
The choice, Waugh suggests, is to cease growing constructing heights and as a substitute discover different methods of measuring the success of a timber constructing.
This may very well be – as instructed by Dezeen columnist Maximilian Pramreiter – by measuring the constructing’s materials effectivity, or by measuring its wellbeing impression.
“Perhaps we have to measure success by way of hygge?” he instructed, referencing the Scandinavian idea of cosiness. “It may very well be about how comfy and completely satisfied you are feeling within the area.”
“We’re not going to expire of bushes”
Waugh believes it’s possible for all architects to pivot in the direction of a timber-first method.
Though there are solely round 70 CLT producers worldwide at the moment, the architect factors out that there have been “solely 4 or 5” a decade in the past. He expects the quantity to rise quickly as the marketplace for mass timber continues to increase.
“We’re not going to be setting up each constructing from CLT tomorrow, as a result of there aren’t sufficient factories, however there shall be,” he stated. “It is inevitable.”
Analysis is a basic facet of Waugh Thistleton’s observe. In 2018, it launched the report 100 Initiatives UK CLT, providing in depth steering on the benefits and challenges of constructing with CLT.
Based mostly on his experience, Waugh would not see the demand for wooden outweighing the availability in the long run. He believes that, with higher woodland administration, Europe’s timber yield may very well be enormously elevated.
“In Europe, greater than half of the timber that is minimize down is burned as a so-called renewable vitality. That should cease,” he stated.
EU international locations burned 23.1 million tonnes of wooden pellets as a supply of vitality in 2021, in line with knowledge from UNECE, whereas a single energy plant within the UK imported and burnt 7.8 million tonnes of pellets.
“We have to plant extra bushes and get higher at utilizing them, by burning much less and being extra environment friendly” stated Waugh. “But it surely’s not like we will run out of bushes anytime quickly.”
“We’re proper firstly”
One of many technical challenges of constructing in timber is do with water ingress. If a mass-timber constructing shouldn’t be adequately waterproofed, it could actually trigger the construction to deteriorate.
Waugh factors to related issues with concrete when it was first launched. He’s assured that points like this shall be resolved as data about mass-timber buldings grows.
“We’re proper firstly,” he stated.
“It took us many years to grasp the way to use concrete,” he added. “Earlier than the second world conflict, architects had been being sued as a result of their buildings had been falling down.”
“We’re going by related studying curves with timber.”
Both method, Waugh believes a timber revolution is imminent because of the degree of funding going into mass-timber.
His observe is at the moment growing schemes all over the world, in international locations together with the USA, Norway and Italy.
“For those who had requested me 10 years in the past, I might have stated that laws would drive greener buildings,” he stated. “That hasn’t occurred.”
“As a substitute, it is cash that’s driving change. Funding funds are demanding low-carbon buildings, as a result of they do not wish to be proudly owning huge concrete and metal buildings in 10, 20 or 50 years time.”
The architect’s fear is that curiosity in timber has grow to be trendy and may very well be seen as a passing pattern.
“This may very well be a second of vogue that we’re in, somewhat than the start of a paradigm shift, which is what it must be,” he stated.
“I concern lots of architects deal with timber as a further materials of their palette and that upsets me. This is not a palette selection; it’s a full shift in the way in which through which we take into consideration the values of structure.”
The pictures are courtesy of Waugh Thistleton until in any other case acknowledged.
Timber Revolution
This text is a part of Dezeen’s Timber Revolution collection, which explores the potential of mass timber and asks whether or not going again to wooden as our major development materials can lead the world to a extra sustainable future.
