Engineered Wood Is the New Trend in Construction. This Type of Material Is Processed Wood Industrially Transformed into Construction Property. Engineers Worldwide Are Competing to See Who Constructs the Tallest Building Made of Wood

Taller Buildings Made of Wood, In Some Countries It Is Normal to Use Wood to Build Houses, Now the New Trend in Civil Construction Is to Build Buildings Using Engineered Wood.

 But where did the term “engineered” come from? The term is used because wood goes through various processes and engineering to go from raw material, with its natural defects, to material with constructive properties. After decades of using concrete and steel, civil construction is returning to wood for a variety of structures. Besides being cheaper, as strong as steel, it is sustainable, more efficient, and does not emit polluting gases; on the contrary, it stores carbon dioxide, helping to control the greenhouse effect in the medium and long term.

  For over 10,000 years, wood has been used as raw material for building houses. However, now combined with technology, this will be a new reality.  With buildings, houses, even schools made from engineered wood, which in addition to being environmentally friendly could create more jobs and new activities, since the woods used in the processes will come from reforestation, having infinite cycles. 

The Tallest Wooden Building in the World

 In the Brazilian civil construction, this type of material is still new, but countries like the USA and Norway are already in a race to build taller buildings made from this type of wood. The most commonly used raw materials for these constructions are Pinus and Eucalyptus.

In the USA, more precisely in Milwaukee, the tallest building made of engineered wood has been built, and the building has 25 floors, quite an achievement for the construction industry. The building was inaugurated between August and September of this year. Before it, the tallest was in Norway, in the small town of Brumunddal, standing at 85 meters tall with 18 floors. It was inaugurated in 2019. To maintain ecological standards, woods in MLC — Glued Laminated Timber were used in columns and connections, while CLT — Cross-Laminated Timber is used for constructing floors and external walls.

 In some other countries around the globe, there are also other buildings made of wood; in Brisbane, Australia, a nine-story building was inaugurated at the end of 2018. In Sweden, the city of Skellefteå is trying to recover its heritage from the past and set aside concrete buildings to use only wood in its constructions. There is the Sara Cultural Center with 20 floors, which for some time was the tallest in the world, but was soon surpassed by Norway, which despite having two floors less, is 10 meters taller.

 In Toronto, Canada, another building is under construction to enter the race; the building will have 18 floors. In Brazil, the company Amata, which is investing and bringing the innovation to the country, constructed an experimental building called Urban Forest, with 13 floors.