Building concepts based on CLT and LVL are a new way of building with wood, balancing today's needs with the needs of future generations. We offer a structured approach to your dreams and ambitions.
Find out more:
Imagine what
a tree can do
Building concepts based on CLT and LVL are a new way of building with wood, balancing today's needs with the needs of future generations. We offer a structured approach to your dreams and ambitions.
Find out more:
Imagine what
a tree can do
Part of the bioeconomy, Stora Enso is a leading provider of renewable solutions in packaging, biomaterials, wooden constructions, and paper globally. Our materials are renewable, reusable, and recyclable, and form the building blocks for a range of innovative solutions that can help replace products based on fossil fuels and other non-renewable materials.
Stora Enso’s Wood Products division provides versatile wood-based solutions for building and housing. Our product range covers all areas of construction, including massive wood elements and wood components. We also offer sawn timber goods, biocomposites and pellets for sustainable heating.
LOOKING UP TO SUSTAINABLE DESIGN
Entering a space, many of us look down or straight ahead. If we can tear our eyes away from our devices and look out, even up, then we’ll probably see the result of one of this decade’s major design trends: exposed beams and rafters, or rib panels.
These open ceilings can brighten an office, cozy-up a school building, or bring a rustic charm to modern residential construction. While including them in a room design used to be costly, weighty, and involve steel or concrete, Stora Enso is now bringing a renewable alternative in rib panels.
Rib panels, the structures that actually make the floors and roofs of a building, are traditionally made from concrete. Stora Enso has recently launched rib panels made of Cross-Laminated Timber (CLT), which offer architectural freedom and structural performance.
WHY WOOD?
In schools of design, wood represents innovation and creativity. It brings warmth and elegance to a space. However, wood can be perceived as a material only for decorative solutions and small scale construction.
Stora Enso’s CLT method is lightweight, cost-competitive and environmentally sound – and fully suitable for commercial, industrial and residential construction. The rib panels are ready to install so there’s no dust during construction. The CLT rib panels have superior strength, stability and high load-bearing capacity. The space between ribs can be used to route service lines or other installations, making it an ideal choice for public buildings.
In addition, the rib panels allow for architectural flexibility over the lifetime of a space. By choosing a rib panel, a row of columns and beams can easily be omitted, increasing open plan space and therefore floor plan and usage options.
The good spanning capability is also a benefit for buildings with car parks or other similar spaces.
Additionally, as a construction material, wood can do something that competing materials can’t: wood grows back!
Spirit of innovation
Manchester’s latest timber framed pavilion, home of the new Ivy Restaurant, is a celebration of ambition and green values. Pushing the boundaries of timber construction and spanning four floors from brasserie to roof garden, it uses Stora Enso’s CLT rib panels for the floors and CLT for the walls. Timber contractor was B&K Structures.
INVESTING IN INNOVATIVE BUILDING
The rib panel offering is based on Stora Enso’s Glulam and Cross Laminated Timber (CLT) products. The new rib panel production line is located next to the CLT production in Stora Enso’s Ybbs mill in Austria. Mathieu Robert, Director for Building Solutions, says the benefits are numerous:
“Our rib panels are designed to provide long span building components with high-load bearing capacity, suitable for open and highly flexible floor plans. Additionally, made in a climate-controlled environment, the tailor-made rib panels can be transported to building site just in time for assembly, saving time and ensuring high quality,” Robert says.
BENEFITS TO BUILDERS
CLT rib panels are prefabricated and lightweight. This makes the work flow quicker from delivery to assembly compared to other construction methods. No forming or curing time, no special equipment needed. Using CLT rib panels means no noise and dust pollution normally associated with construction using non-renewable materials.
There are fewer pieces to install, so construction programs save time in preliminary steps, focusing instead on other construction activities. Long span floors with CLT rib panels can reduce the number of components to be installed by up to 20–30% keeping the construction costs down.
While a long span layout may have a higher overall frame cost, efficiencies in other areas of the construction can compensate for this and bring savings in total costs. In poor soil conditions, a reduced loading from lower self-weight will help keep foundation works to a minimum. The capability of CLT rib panels, spanning over long distances, will increase the foundation grid and therefore reduce the total foundation cost.
Best of all, the rib panels meet the demand of creating spaces that are stylish, elegant, and timeless.
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100,000
The number of new council homes the UK should be building each year for the next three decades, according to TV celebrity architect George Clarke. Clarke has launched a campaign urging the government to take action on the issue, including a petition that has already attracted over 130,000 signatures. He has also urged the government to review Right to Buy legislation as part of the campaign.
2.4 million
The number of monthly online searches for the late Zaha Hadid, who is the most popular starchitect in the world according to a ranking system by Monograph. The ranking system, which uses the STAR model developed by MIT’s architectural data team, places Norman Foster in a distant second, followed by Le Corbusier, Bjarke Ingels and Renzo Piano.
7 minutes 30 seconds
The time UNStudio’s design for the world’s first cross-border cable car will take to carry passengers between Russia and China. The project, which has won an international competition, will see the two cities of Blagoveshchensk, Russia, and Heihe, China, connected across the Amur River. The cable car will consist of two lines and four cabins, each with a capacity for 60 passengers.
£1.1m
The amount required to restore and gain legal protections for the Undercroft, a global skateboarding destination located beneath the Southbank Centre in London, the UK. The space, which is also considered a brutalist landmark, narrowly avoided closure and conversion to retail environment in 2013. It re-opened in late July following a fully crowdfunded campaign.
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£24,000
The amount a fake architecture practice has been fined by UK courts. Hanzo Design, led by Tatsiana Aliaksanava, was given the fine at the end of June for misusing the title of architect after being convicted of four counts of the same. The company, which had claimed to employ ‘experienced architects’ despite having no registered architects on its staff, previously ignored multiple warnings from the Architects’ Registration Board (ARB).
César Pelli, an acclaimed Argentine-American architect specialising high-rises, has died at the age of 92. Pelli made a name for his design of some of the tallest buildings in the world, including the Petronas Towers in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, the Torre de Cristal in Madrid, Spain, and the Salesforce Tower in San Francisco, USA. He was awarded the AIA’s Gold Medal in 1995 and the Aga Khan Award in Architecture in 2004.
Source: Archdaily
The controversial Foster + Partners design for a 305.3m viewing tower in central London, known as The Tulip, has been rejected by London mayor Sadiq Khan. Intended to feature a gondola ride surrounding its exterior, the tower had been criticised for its resemblance to a sex toy and for the intention to charge for entry. Khan axed the plans over a lack of public benefit and for failing to meet the standard of “world class architecture”.
Source: Dezeen
Italian architect Cristiano Toraldo di Francia, founder of groundbreaking Italian architecture practice Superstudio, has died. His practice is considered one of the most important in postwar Italy, with his work credited with transforming how architecture is discussed, conveyed and evolved, particularly around the exploration of utopias as a means to reinvent the world and highlight problems within existing systems.
Source: Archdaily
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