Sweden’s innovative wooden skyscraper captures as much carbon as 10,000 forests
Between the tall trees on Sweden’s Bottom Coast, a new skyscraper stands against the trend in the traditionally coal-heavy construction industry.
The 20-storey and 75-meter-high Sara Cultural Center – named after a popular Swedish author – opened its doors in September last year.
There’s another one wood structure to adorn Skellefteå streets – a city that is tackling the climate crisis one new building at a time.
– Everyone thought we were a little crazy when we proposed a building like this in wood, says Robert Schmitz, the architect behind the building.
“But we were quite pragmatic, so we said that if you can not do everything in timber, we can at least do some of it that way. But during the design process, we all came out and said that it is more efficient to build everything in wood. “
How can construction be less harmful to the environment?
The cultural center is home to six theater stages, a library, two art galleries, a conference center and a hotel with 205 rooms.
The whole is built of over 12,000 cubic meters of wood – felled from forests just 60 km from the city.
The design is part of a broader investment in Skellefteå to wean the local construction industry from environmentally hazardous materials.
According to the UN’s environmental program, construction work accounted for over 38 percent of global energy-related carbon dioxide emissions in 2015 alone. largest single industrial CO2 emitter in the world.
Wood, on the other hand, binds carbon dioxide, binds it from the atmosphere and stores it for good.
Those behind the Sara Cultural Center – the second tallest wooden tower in the world – claim it skyscraper will capture nine million kilograms of carbon dioxide throughout its lifetime.
But the building’s sustainable focus does not end there. It also has solar panels that can power the building and store excess energy in the basement.
How does this skyscraper communicate with its surroundings?
Designers say that the culture house can “communicate” with nearby structures and distribute surplus energy when needed.
“It analyzes the building’s energy use and it can make decisions about how we should operate it based on available energy levels,” says Patrik Sundberg, business unit manager at the local energy company Skellefteå Kraft.
Sundberg claims that over time, the skyscraper will “learn” the building’s energy needs.
“We have an AI system that helps the skyscraper make those decisions every minute, 24/7.”
A city built by the forest
Wood construction is nothing new in Skellefteå, which has relied on the abundance of nearby forest land to build its buildings since the 18th century.
From an impressive timber bridge that stretches across the local river, to a newer three-storey car park in the center, everything in Skellefteå feels like it is made of the trees that surround it. In most cases, it really is.
And with the city’s population growing in the coming years – from 72,000 to 80,000 inhabitants by 2030 – locals are keen to keep this green tradition alive for a new generation.
“In all this change we are going through, with all the new people moving here, we feel confident that we have this new environmentally friendly material,” said Evelina Fahlesson, the city’s deputy mayor.
“If we did not have that tradition, what would the city be then? What would the municipality be? A completely different kind of thing.”
The Swedish construction company Lindbacks specializes in prefabricated wooden buildings. They are now working on a new timber apartment project to house the city’s new arrivals.
“A good thing about the wooden frame is that you can change it over time, which you can not do with houses,” says the agency’s business manager David Sundström.
“Forestry and log houses have existed here for a thousand years in Scandinavia. We have lived in log houses that have the bonus of being able to change walls and change the arrangement of the building.”
This is another benefit too carbon bonding wood, which today accounts for over 20 percent of all new multi-storey buildings in Sweden.
Tomas Alsmarker, head of innovation at Swedish Wood, says that the country has seen a huge change in building materials over the past five years.
For over a century, Sweden had banned wooden houses over two storeys high. It is now the best material in the country with the largest share of forest land in Europe.
“For all buildings up to eight storeys high, the question is not whether it is possible to do it in wood. You should ask why we should not do it in wood.”
Watch the video above to find out more about Sweden’s wooden city.