IS THIS THE TURNING POINT FOR CONCRETE BEING REPLACED BY SUSTAINABLE TIMBER.
In Scandinavia passiv houses have been built for years, small commercial units more recently but now there is a move underfoot for much greater projects. Western Australia is set to become home to the world’s tallest timber building, a “revolutionary” 50-storey hybrid design reaching a height of 191.2 metres. Timber will make up 42% of South Perth’s C6 building, including the tower’s beams, floor panels, studs, joinery and linings. The Grange Development project at 6 Charles Street will include more than 200 apartments and was approved by Perth’s Metro Inner-South Joint Development Assessment Panel. The developers say it will be carbon negative, storing more carbon than it uses and will combine lightweight, durable, renewable glued laminated timber and cross-laminated timber with lower amounts of steel and concrete than conventional construction methods. The building’s developers claim that the 7,400 cubic metres of timber consumed by C6 could be regrown in just 59 minutes from one sustainably farmed forestry region. “C6 will consume approximately 580 pine trees sourced from sustainably managed and farmed forests,” the project’s website states. “We can’t grow concrete.” Construction accounts for 11% of global carbon emissions, while cement alone is responsible for 8% of all carbon emissions. In 2020, WA generated 81.7m tonnes of CO2, or 16% of Australia’s emissions. With residential housing the old conventional system has been very wasteful and time consuming. Passiv houses can be prefabricated in factories with min waste and transported to site by truck with erection times in days. Combined with screw piles concrete can be eliminated. This system is ideal for flood prone areas as the screwed piles are adjustable in height as seen on some sites in Holland.
