Not quite right, but you get the picture.
Posted on 02/20/2018 5:21:18 PM PST by nickcarraway
A Japanese company is planning to build the world's tallest wooden skyscraper with 90 percent of the building made of wood.
Sumitomo Forestry says its wooden high-rise — dubbed the W350 — will be 350 meters tall and the planned structure will be a hybrid of mostly wood and steel.
The 70-storey building, expected to be built in Tokyo, will comprise of stores, offices, hotels and private homes, the company noted in plans released earlier in February.
Sumitomo Forestry, which notes on its website that "happiness grows from trees," said it aimed to create environmentally-friendly, timber-utilizing cities which "become forests through increased use of wooden architecture for high-rise buildings."
Building with wood is still not cheap, however.
Using 185,000 cubic meters of timber, the building is expected to cost around 600 billion Japanese yen ($5.6 billion) which is twice the amount of a conventional high-rise building constructed with current technology.
Sumitomo Forestry However, the company believed that those costs would come down as timber became a more-frequently used material: "Going forward, the economic feasibility of the project will be enhanced by reducing costs through technological development."
Currently the tallest wooden building is 18-storeys high (53 meters) and serves as accommodation for students at the University of British Colombia.
Greenery will feature heavily in the building from Sumitomo Forestry with foliage connecting from the ground to top floors offering "a view of biodiversity in an urban setting."
The building plans show balconies that continue around all four sides of the building, giving a space "in which people can enjoy fresh outside air, rich natural elements and sunshine filtering through foliage."
With earthquakes not unusual in Japan, the building will incorporate a structural system composed of braced tubes made from columns, beams and braces "to prevent deformation of the building due to lateral forces such as earthquakes or wind."
Wooden cities The concept for the building has been prepared primarily at Tsukuba Research Institute, Sumitomo Forestry's research and development facility.
The institute is looking at the "expanding possibilities for wooden buildings as a road map for future technology, such as the development of building methods, environmentally-friendly technologies, and trees that become resources and building materials," the company said.
Sumitomo Forestry can trace its origins in the timber industry back to 1691 and the W350 building is planned to mark the company's 350th anniversary in 2041.
The company notes that forests cover approximately two thirds (68.5 percent) of Japan's land area. This puts it at second place among OECD member countries, behind Finland.
However, the self-supply rate for domestically-produced timber is only at around 30 percent, the company states, and Japan's forests are at risk due to insufficient maintenance.
"Although the large amounts of Japanese cedar and Japanese cypress planted after the Second World War have now reached the time for harvesting, they are being left in an un-maintained state as devastation of our domestic forests continues. It is crucial to use these trees and replant them after harvesting to encourage sustainability of forests," the company said.
What about after W350? People will be pining for the good old days..
Got wood?
Wow you posted that and I just realized it was a different article than I read last night when I sent out my emails... It was much shorter blurb and did not even mention the steel.
Steel rigid frames are the only possible way I know of... Makes a little more sense now though.
Wood is a green, renewable resource.
Until it burns.
...
How soon they forget.
The Operation Meetinghouse firebombing of Tokyo on the night of 9 March 1945 was the single deadliest air raid of World War II, greater than Dresden, Hamburg, Hiroshima, or Nagasaki as single events.
Laz always says he's happiest when he has wood.
Those crazy Japanese.
But they interrupt Raiders games.
Om the other hand, it will be really great for a future 70's style disaster movie.
No, a pagoda is not quite that high. There are some modern buildings that incorporate pagoda design elements. They do tend to burn. Lightning strike fires.
https://gizmodo.com/5846501/how-japans-oldest-wooden-building-is-still-standing
“In fact, only two Japanese pagodas in the last 1400 years, the pair at Todai-ji temple, are known to have actually collapsed from shaking alone.”
Not quite right, but you get the picture.
I’m almost sure this is that new “Densified Wood”.
They take out the lignin —the part that makes wood brown— and then they bake in some Pexiglass stuff.
The result is so strong that the military considered it as cheap ARMOR.
Even auto makers are thinking about using it.
TECHNICALLY a type of former wood.
People are thinking “log cabin” and that’s wrong.
No pix, no clicks particularly when if it’s from a MSM venue.
Exactly, thanks.
I read a post describing exactly what you are talking about, and that was my first impression. Densified wood is probably the only way they could use wood and get around all the issues the other posters are discussing.
Sounds like a fire disaster waiting to happen.
Shaped and finished like a match stick?
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