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TreeHugger reports:
Sumitomo Forestry, an industry giant in Japan, [is] pivoting to plyscrapers and proposing a 70-story, 350 meter (1148') tower for the Marunouchi district in Tokyo. It's called W350, the plan being that it will be finished in 2041, the 350th anniversary of the founding of the company.
[...] Using a hybrid 9:1 ratio of wood to steel, Sumitomo Forestry aims to replace concrete, which is one of the world's largest carbon footprint contributors. The skyscraper would be a 70-floor mixed-use building that would include a hotel, office space, commercial space, and residences. Wrap-around balconies at different intervals would be planted with lush wildlife. And greenery would extend throughout the entire complex, creating a vertical forest where humans and wildlife can flourish.
[...] It is a brace tube structure, "a structural system that forms a cylindrical shell (brace tube) with columns / beams and braces. By placing braces diagonally in a set of shafts assembled with columns and beams, it prevents the building from deforming against lateral forces such as earthquakes and wind."
The images are beautiful.
Previously: Super Wood Could Replace Steel
The Case for Wooden Skyscrapers
Can You Build A Safe, Sustainable Skyscraper Out Of Wood?
(Score: 5, Interesting) by bob_super on Tuesday February 20 2018, @10:12PM (1 child)
Solid wood is a terrible heat conductor, and burns very slowly. That's why you put he big log in the chimney to last the whole night.
While it's burning, it may retain more strength than many metals exposed to the same amount of heat (they're not burning, but everything but the concrete does). Also, the assembly process and the fastening being very different, it would be hard to tell how long the Twin towers would have stood if made of wood. The blunt trauma would have sheared off some columns, but the explosion might have had less impact.
As far as decay, TFA explains that the structure is designed to enable swapping timbers.
Most modern buildings are only designed for a hundred years or so, while wooden beams in castles can be a thousand years, and many battles, old.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 21 2018, @01:48AM
In the chimney? I put mine in the stove and keep the chimney clear.