Wooden football stadium highlights growing demand for environmentally friendly materials
Forest Green Rovers in the west of England plans to build the world’s first modern football stadium almost entirely from one of the oldest building materials – wood.
The club boasts that the 5,000-seat arena, designed by Zaha Hadid Architects, will be the “world’s most eco-friendly stadium” and will support its players’ commitment to veganism.
The football club, which plays in the EFL League Two and aims to live up to its Forest Green name, hope to complete construction of the stadium in Gloucestershire by 2025 in an example of the material’s resurgence.
The demand for wood-based buildings has increased thanks to the search for green and sustainable products and an increase in renovations and purchases, fueled by remote working and low interest rates.
Forestry companies such as Finland’s Stora Enso and Austrians KLH Massivholz and Binderholz are expected to benefit, with the Nordic group forecasting rapid growth in markets such as engineered wood.
Despite falling by more than half in the past two months as Americans resume vacationing instead of renovating, lumber prices in the United States are still trading at $ 782 per thousand board feet. , well above their pre-pandemic record.
Finnish sawnwood prices, a guide for the European market, have jumped 57% in one year to € 270 per cubic meter as sawmills run at full capacity.
Traditionally, the wood has been used to build small houses in North America, Scandinavia and Japan. But now governments and businesses around the world are pushing to expand its use in larger public buildings, homes and offices.
Construction generates 10% of global carbon dioxide emissions, which wood could help reduce by replacing concrete and steel, while storing CO2 in building materials.
Andrew Carpenter, managing director of the UK’s Structural Timber Association (STA), expects a sharp increase in wood use, driven by net zero carbon targets.
At present, only one in four houses are built of timber in the UK, but the STA expects that figure to rise to one in three in the next few years after the government committee on climate change recommended its use in 2019.
France has demanded that more than half of the materials used in all public buildings be wood or other sustainable materials, while the Welsh government has already decided to use all wood frames in its affordable housing program in from 2022.
Much of the enthusiasm is focused on engineered wood, especially cross-laminated wood which has many different layers and can be prefabricated in a factory in large sections of a building.
Glued laminated timber, another type of glued laminated timber, can be used for longer spans and heavier loads and offers an alternative to steel beams that is almost 80% lighter.
Google’s new headquarters in London is expected to be built incorporating cross-laminated timber, while Google’s parent company Alphabet is investing in a lumber district in Toronto.
David Hopkins, managing director of the UK’s Timber Trade Federation, says the lumber also lends itself to off-site manufacturing because it is light and strong and can be erected on site quickly. This should help the construction industry with its labor shortages and low productivity.
“It’s boom time for timber,” said Hopkins, whose trade federation represents 1,500 UK companies. “There is a natural life program. It improves productivity in the construction process and is coming back into fashion from an aesthetic point of view.
Some home builders, such as Barratt, Countryside and Persimmon, have bought out wood frame manufacturers to give them control of their supply chain.
In addition, there had been an increase in wood cladding on a range of mid to low rise buildings, aided by changes in US building codes and by architects switching to renewable products, said Richard Waterhouse of NBS. , which helps designers identify suitable materials. .
The material is also used for skyscrapers. The tallest wooden building in the world is the 85-meter Norwegian Mjostarnet Tower, while plans have been made for a 120-meter wooden skyscraper in Vancouver.
However, the timber market has seen some setbacks and failures.
Soaring costs and funding from collapsed lender Greensill forced SoftBank-backed startup Katerra to file for bankruptcy in June.
And although the Grenfell Tower was not made of wood, the 2017 fire in the London apartment building made policymakers nervous about encouraging the use of wood, as it is perceived as fuel.
Industry figures claim fears of fire risk in timber structures are overblown, despite tragedies such as the Bradford City football stadium fire that killed 56 people in 1985.
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They say that, as with all materials, it is about how it is installed and treated. “If you do all of these things correctly, it [wood] is a very safe and stable material, ”said Waterhouse of NBS.
Forest Green stadium will be treated with coatings that slow the spread of fire, while there will be clear exits designed for quick evacuation.
However, Fred Mills, a former professional contractor and founder of The B1M, Youtube’s most subscribed construction channel, said the material faces an uphill battle to gain ground for use in public buildings in the UK. .
“One of the biggest issues is that we have a fundamental and ingrained cultural preference for concrete and steel,” he said.
“We have a culture of building things as cheaply as possible. . . At COP26 [the UN Climate Change Conference in Glasgow later this year], we cannot say that we want to take the lead in climate goals and continue to build with concrete and steel.
But, despite the obstacles, some groups are continuing their expansion plans as they expect capacity to increase.
Rob Harris, managing director of Accsys Technologies, which uses industrial vinegar to impart hardwood properties to softwoods, plans to increase its production capacity five-fold by 2025 from 2019 levels after selling enough wood to fill 24 Olympic swimming pools through March.
“The change is phenomenal, but it is not necessarily driven by policies,” he said, adding that the office market is moving faster than the residential sector by shifting to a material with strong green credentials.