European country plans city with high-rises made of wood: ‘Engineered Timber’

A Swedish development company has revealed its plan to build a city made entirely out of wood. 

“Sweden is progressive when it comes to wood construction,” Annica Anäs, the CEO of Atrium Ljungberg, told The Economist, “but I don’t see any reason why it shouldn’t work elsewhere.”

“Stockholm Wood City” will reportedly be located in Sickla, a municipality to the south of the Swedish capital Stockholm. Construction is scheduled to begin in 2025 and conclude a decade later, according to Anäs.

The project will incorporate environmentalist aspirations, replacing traditional materials, such as steel and concrete, with wood. Development company Atrium Ljungberg reportedly hopes to reduce the “carbon footprint” of construction by 40%.

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The project will largely use a special type of wood called “engineered timber,” which are large composite wood panels in which its layered fibers have been adhesively connected. 

Employed in various construction sites, it is known for increasing structural strength and can be industrially produced, allowing for a quicker and higher-quality construction process. 

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For “Stockholm Wood City,” this material will reputedly play a large part in meeting the completion deadline of 2035 and in achieving a set goal of a 20% return on the investment for the company.

Anäs hopes this may inspire a surge in wood construction throughout the world. 

The city will encompass 250,000 square meters of land, or approximately 2.7 million square feet, which is the size of nearly 47 football fields. 

The site specifically will include 2,000 homes, 7,000 offices, restaurants, and shops, all structured with wood, per the report. It is slated to cost around $1.4 billion.

Some traditional construction materials other than wood will also be used, but only for necessary foundational elements. 

The group believes it can avoid some of the more obvious hazards, such as fire, due to advances in safety technology, fire safety methods and wood-refining methods. 

Axios highlighted previous examples of wood composites that have proven highly successful despite these fire safety concerns, such as Singapore’s college campus with buildings made almost entirely out of timber and the 280-foot-tall timber skyscraper in Norway. 

Engineered timber has proven to resist fire damage well, as demonstrated by the U.S. Forest Service during construction testing and other research according to the report in The Economist. 

Fox News Digital’s Peter Petroff contributed to this report.