As one of three shortlisted proposals in a housing design competition, the 34-storey Wooden Skyscraper is presented by architect C. F. Møller, architect Dinell Johansson and consultant Tyréns as a vision of future housing that would be cheaper, easier and more sustainable than typical steel and concrete constructions.

"The main reason it hasn't been done before is that concrete and steel have a big part of the market," C. F. Møller architect Ola Jonsson told Dezeen. "But now the building industry has started taking responsibity for the environment."

He continued: "Construction accounts for around 30-40 percent of CO2 produced in the world globally and if you look at the CO2 released in the production of wood it is a lot better than steel or concrete."

According to Jonsson, using wood could even be a cheaper alternative, as it is a lighter material that costs far less to transport. It is also more fire-resistant than steel or concrete.

"We have a long history of building wooden structures in Sweden," he explains. "We have a higher knowledge of how to use the wood those days and we know that glued or nailed wood does have very strong construction qualities."

If built, the 34-storey building would exceed the height of the nine-storey Murray Grove tower in London, as well as a proposed 20-storey tower in Vancouver by architect Michael Green and a Swedish tower approved at 30 floors. "I've seen sketches of other buildings, but we are definitely at the highest end of this discussion," said Jonsson.

Wooden pillars, beams, walls, ceilings and window frames will all be visible through the building's glass facade. The presented designs also include a concrete core, although Jonsson says this could be replaced with wood. "We believe a modern building should use every material for its best purpose," he adds.

The winning entry in the competition, organised by Swedish building society HSB Stockholm, is scheduled to open in 2023 to coincide with the organisation's 100th birthday. Anyone can vote for the winner using the HSB Stockholm Facebook page.

Other projects by C. F. Møller include an art and craft museum completed recently in Norway and a centre for entrepreneurs with a green fibre-cement staircase.

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Here's some more information from C. F. Møller:

Wooden Skyscraper

For HSB Stockholm's architectural competition 2023, three teams of architects have produced innovative proposals for private residences of the future at three different locations in the centre of Stockholm. Berg | C.F. Møller's proposed design is a 34-storey skyscraper made of wood.

Berg | C.F. Møller Architects are working in partnership with architects Dinell Johansson and consultants Tyréns on their entry. The team has chosen to build upwards, and has designed a 34-storey residential building, which will be seen for miles.

The building will be built over a wooden construction with a concrete core, and it is intended to give the people of Stockholm a new and characteristic beacon and meeting place in their city.

Back to basics

Wood is one of nature's most innovative building materials: the production has no waste products and it binds CO2. Wood has low weight, but is a very strong load-bearing structure compared to its lightness.

Wood is also more fire resistant than both steel and concrete. This is due to 15% of wood mass being water, which will evaporate before the wood actually burns. In addition, logs get charred which protects the core.

Wood secures a good indoor climate, perfect acoustics, helps regulating the inside temperature and can be exposed without being covered with plaster or other costly materials.

In Berg | C.F. Møller's wooden skyscraper, the pillars and beams are made of solid wood. Inside the apartments, all the walls, ceilings and window frames are made of wood as well and will be visible from the exterior through the large windows.

Sustainable

Social and environmental sustainability is integrated into the project. Each apartment will have an energy-saving, glass-covered veranda, while the building itself will be powered by solar panels on the roof. At street level there is a café and childcare facility. In a new community centre, local people will be able to enjoy the benefits of a market square, fitness centre and bicycle storage room. A communal winter garden will provide residents with an opportunity to have allotment gardens.

All three design proposals are available on HSB Stockholm's Facebook page. Here you can vote for your favourite and thus play your part in determining how private homes in Stockholm will look in the future.

About the competition

HSB Stockholm - Sweden's largest building society - is 100 years old in 2023. At that time an ultra-modern residential high-rise building will be completed in Stockholm city. Three architectural teams are now preparing the competitive proposals for the spectacular house that will be placed at one of three different sites in Stockholm.

Berg | C.F. Møller Architects is working together with architects Dinell Johansson and the urban planning consultancy Tyréns. The other two competing teams are Equator Stockholm with Mojang (Minecraft) and Utopia Architects with Rosenberg Architects.

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wooden skyscraper appeared first on Dezeen.

The 307-metre skyscraper, previously known as the Infinity Tower, contains 495 apartments within a towering helical form that rotates 90 degrees from base to peak. "The lower portion of the tower is oriented toward the exciting waterfront promenade of Dubai Marina, while the upper floors are rotated to face the Gulf," explains SOM's design director Ross Wimer.

The twisted profile aims to reduce powerful wind forces on the tower by dispersing them around the exterior, while the perforated metal skin is designed to screen the interior from harsh desert sunlight.

This is the third skyscraper completed by SOM in the emirate city, following the 828-metre Burj Khalifa and the 235-metre Rolex Tower.

"Cayan Tower adds to SOM's significant impact on Dubai's twenty-first century skyline," comments SOM partner George Efstathiou. "It takes its place with our finest designs, including the nearby Rolex Tower and Burj Khalifa."

SOM is one of the largest architecture firms in the world. Recent projects include a vision for the future of New York's Pennsylvania Station and plans for Singapore's tallest tower.

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Photograph © Tim Griffith/SOM.

Here's a press release from SOM:

SOM's Cayan (formerly Infinity) Tower opens

The Skidmore Owings & Merrill LLP (SOM)-designed Cayan (formerly Infinity) Tower in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, was inaugurated by its developer, Saudi Arabia-based Cayan Investment & Development, earlier this week. The dramatically rising helix of the 75-storey building provides a distinctive landmark on the city's skyline. The 1,010-feet (307-metres) tall reinforced concrete structure rotates a hexagonal floor plate around a circular core - with the top offset 90 degrees from the base. The shift maximises views for each of the 495 apartments.

Deep concrete exterior columns clad in a metal skin with perforated screens help shield the building's interior from the intense desert sun. The tower's innovative shape required equally innovative engineering. The corner and interior columns twist as they ascend, but most of the perimeter columns have an identical shape and tilted relationship to the floor plate. They are simply shifted, a bit more than a single degree, from floor to floor - resulting in a standardised construction method typical to most concrete structures. Mechanical, electrical and plumbing systems are located in the core or within a zone between the central circulation corridor and the residential units, allowing straight vertical paths for these systems as the relationship between the apartments served varies between floors. The shape of the tower is not only aesthetically unique but it serves a structural function as well. Its twisted shape greatly reduces wind forces on the tower and "confuses the wind" in a way that wind forces cannot organise themselves.

Cayan Group President and Chairman Ahmed M Al Hatti notes Cayan Tower is the highest twisted tower in the entire world.

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Referencing the shapes of typical Vietnamese fishing baskets, the top-heavy bamboo structures form a grid between the tables of the open-air dining room, which functions as the restaurant and banqueting hall for the Kontum Indochine Hotel.

Vo Trong Nghia Architects designed the restaurant without any walls, allowing uninterrupted views across the surrounding shallow pools of water, and beyond that towards the neighbouring river and distant mountains.

The roof of the structure is clad with bamboo but also contains layers of thatch and fibre-reinforced plastic. In some places the plastic panels are exposed, allowing natural light to permeate the canopy.

There's no air conditioning, but the architects explain that the surrounding waters and the shade of the overhanging roof help to keep the space cool, even in the hottest seasons.

"By providing shadow under the bamboo roof and maximising the cool air flow across the water surface of the lake, the open-air indoor space successfully operates without using air conditioning," they say.

All of the fixings for the columns are made from bamboo rather than steel and were constructed using traditional techniques, such as smoke-drying and the use of bamboo nails.

"The challenge of the project is to respect the nature of bamboo as a material and to create a distinctive space unique to bamboo," say the architects. "The bamboo columns create an inner lining, giving the impression of being in a bamboo forest."

Bridges cross the water to provide access to the cafe from three sides, plus a concrete and stone kitchen is positioned at the back.

Vietnamese firm Vo Trong Nghia Architects has constructed various buildings using bamboo, including prototypes for modular homes and a domed bar at the centre of a lake.

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Photography is by Hiroyuki Oki.

Read on for a project description from Vo Trong Nghia Architects:

Kontum Indochine Café

Kontum Indochine Cafe is designed as a part of a hotel complex along Dakbla River in Kontum City, Middle Vietnam. Adjacent to Dakbla Bridge, a gateway to Kontum City, the cafeteria serves as a breakfast, dinner and tea venue for hotel guests. It also functions as a semi-outdoor banquet hall for wedding ceremonies.

Located on a corner plot, the cafe is composed of two major elements: a main building with a big horizontal roof made of bamboo structure and an annex kitchen made of concrete frames and stones.

The main building has a rectangular plan surrounded by a shallow artificial lake. All elevations are open to the air: the south facade faces the main street along Dakbla River, the east to the service street, the west to a restaurant and banquet building belonging to the hotel complex and the north to the annex kitchen which serves the cafe. By providing shadow under the bamboo roof and maximising the cool air flow across the water surface of the lake, the open-air indoor space successfully operates without using air conditioning even in a tropical climate. The roof is covered by fibre-reinforced plastic panels and thatch. The translucent synthetic panels are partly exposed in the ceiling to provide natural light in the deep centre of the space under the roof.

The roof of the main building is supported by a pure bamboo structure composed of 15 inverse-cone-shaped units. The form of these columns was inspired by a traditional Vietnamese basket for fishing which gradually narrows from the top toward the base. This open structure maximises the wind flow into the building during the summer, while resisting harsh storms during the windy season. From the cafe, hotel guests can enjoy a great panoramic view of the mountains and Dakbla River framed by the bamboo arches. The bamboo columns create an inner lining, giving the impression of being in a bamboo forest and show the continuity to the mountains as seen from the cafe.

The challenge of the project is to respect the nature of bamboo as a material and to create a distinctive space unique to bamboo.

The material characteristics of bamboo are different from that of timber or steel. If the details and construction methods of timber or steel structures are applied to bamboo structures, the advantages of bamboo may be impaired. For instance, using steel joints kill the cost benefit of bamboo structures. Steel pin joint generates too much local loads which is not appropriate for bamboo, which tends to be subject to buckling.

In this context, we use traditional treatment methods (soaking in mud and smoking out) for the treatment of bamboo, and we use low-tech joint details (ratten-tying and bamboo nails), which is suitable for bamboo structures. The columns at Kontum City are prefabricated before their erection to achieve the appropriate quality and accuracy.

Status: built in Jan 2013
Program: cafeteria
Location: Kontum, Vietnam
GFA: 551 sqm

Architect Firm: Vo Trong Nghia Architects
Principal architects: Vo Trong Nghia
Contractor: Wind and Water House JSC, Truong Long JSC

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Vo Trong Nghia Architects appeared first on Dezeen.

Named 28Posti, the restaurant occupies a former karaoke bar in Milan's Navigli neighbourhood and opened in April to coincide with the Salone Internazionale del Mobile.

Francesco Faccin designed the interior, retaining the peeling plaster and exposed brickwork of the existing walls and adding wooden seating and fixtures as well as a concrete floor.

Working alongside Maria Luisa Daglia and Gaetano Berni of charity organisation Live in Slums, Faccin enlisted a team of prisoners from the nearby Bollate Penitentiary to build all the furniture for the restaurant, tutored by carpenter Giuseppe Filippini.

The Bollate inmates used recycled timber offcuts to build tables, sideboards, doors and wall panelling. Three members of the team also helped to strip and clean the structure, pour the concrete floor and fit the windows and furniture.

"[One of] the restaurant's objectives is to become a showcase of these furnishings in order to create a direct sales network with the Bollate's penitentiary workshop," explains the 28Posti team.

To complete the space, pendant lights made from recycled plastic bottles are suspended over each of the tables, while Kenyan objects and sculptures are placed within recesses in the walls.

See more eateries on Dezeen, including a restaurant filled with a weave of colourful strings and a pizza bar lined with ceramic tiles.

Photography is by Filippo Romano.

Here's a project description from the restaurant's website:

28Posti

The restaurant room is cosy and intimate, only 28 covers. It is located in a quiet street in the core of Navigli's neighbourhood, precisely where in the past was located the historical club "Karaoke Canta Milano". The architectural project is designed according to the original spatial characteristics and it is supplied with furniture entirely produced with waste materials.

The kitchen is the soul of the project: the guests can have access to it through a quick passage at the entrance and though a loophole in the main room which reveals the preparation of foods. Our cuisine is oriented toward ethical values, attentive to the quality of food, the respect for the environment and the fairness of the production processes.

The convicts of the penitentiary who have been able to benefit from the Art.21 could participate to the construction process. After this important experience, the restaurant will continue to be devoted with diligence to the reinstatement of disadvantaged groups.

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by Francesco Faccin appeared first on Dezeen.

The three-storey residence was created for a family, who asked Takeshi Hamada for a basic rectilinear house "like a block of tofu" with lots of natural light and a living room on the ground floor.

To achieve this, the architect designed a white-rendered building with windows on its sides rather than its front, then added a triple-height living room at the centre of the plan.

Windows surround the living room on two of its walls, while glass doors lead out to a secluded courtyard beyond.

Three bedrooms are located in the corners of the first floor, connected by balcony corridors that overlook the room below.

"The design features a high ceiling above the living room to bring the light from the garden area into the house and at the same time create a continuum between the upper and lower floors," says Hamada.

Staircases and ramps inside the bedrooms lead to mezzanine lofts at the top of the house, where residents can also look down to the ground floor.

"Some of the loft space is exposed through the atrium and some is closed, so there is an adjustable connection between public and private space," adds the architect.

House T is one of several houses Takeshi Hamada has completed and named with a letter. Others include House A, which has a stark concrete multi-purpose space on its ground floor, and House K, which features an arched entrance.

See more houses by Takeshi Hamada »
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Photography is by Yohei Sasakura.

Here's a project description from Takeshi Hamada:

House T

The site is in a quiet residential suburb on the outskirts of Osaka Prefecture. It is nearly 34 'tsubo' in area, (111.67 sqm), completely surrounded by other properties except a 4 metre section directly north, which faces a narrow side road.

The client requested the following three things. First of all, the house must be full of light! Next, the exterior must be extremely simple – like a block of tofu. Finally, the plumbing fixtures and living room must be on the ground floor.

According to these requests, and after judging the piece of land, I decided on a plan for a house that opened out widely on the south side. By then closing the plan completely on the north side, a simple exterior was achieved, with a light and open interior. The first floor contains the living and dining areas, a tatami mat room, kitchen, bath and laundry areas. The living room and tatami room surround the private garden. The design features a high ceiling above the living room to bring the light from the garden area into the house and at the same time create a continuum between the upper and lower floors.

On the second floor are the main bedroom and children's rooms. Each of the rooms has a loft space and attic storage space. Some of the loft space is exposed through the atrium and some is closed, so there is an adjustable connection between public and private space. The atrium provides a continuum between the public first floor and private second floor.

The central living area with two atrium spaces, a bridge and lofts link to form a complex labyrinth.

Name of construction: House T
Location: Osaka Prefecture, Neyagawa City
Period of construction: August, 2012 to December, 2012
Extent of structure: wooden construction, two-storey

Land area: 111.67 sqm
Building area: 64.85 sqm
Total floor area: 1110.65 sqm (first floor: 61.59 sqm, second floor: 49.09 sqm)

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Takeshi Hamada appeared first on Dezeen.