Forest office: The role of wood in Paris's low-carbon building boom

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Forest office: The role of wood in Paris's low-carbon building boom

Рет қаралды 3,465

2 ай бұрын

New Scientist's Graham Lawton recently visited two construction sites in Paris that showcase the wonder material of the future: wood. Each site uses wood as an alternative to typical modern construction materials such as steel and concrete, and the potential benefits are numerous: from lower carbon emissions to improved mental health. Wooden construction, it would seem, could help restore our health and the planet's.
At Marcadet Belvédère, a former parcel terminus for the French railway network overlooked by the Basilica of the Sacred Heart, property developer WO2 is adding five extra storeys to the existing concrete shell to create new office space. The new storeys are mostly made of cross-laminated timber (CLT), an engineered wood product that rivals concrete and steel as a structural material, but with a much lower carbon footprint.
At Arboretum, on the western fringes of Paris, is the largest wooden office project in Europe. It is a campus comprising five new low-rise offices set in parkland. The buildings are made largely of CLT, which, as at Marcadet, means the project has half the lifetime carbon emissions of a standard new build.
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Пікірлер: 17

2 ай бұрын

My house is going to stand for hundreds of years because it is from bricks. Tell me how it is ecological to rebuild the same wooden house 17 times over the same timespan

@don5nake Ай бұрын

There are many wooden buildings throughout Europe which are hundreds of years old. It just comes down to moisture management and protection against UV, both of which can be solved with good building design and maintenance.

@dylantorres2406 Ай бұрын

@@don5nakegood point but aside from that, timber is renewable (you can always grow more from the earth), but most importantly it’s production actually reduces CO2 from the atmosphere whereas steel and concrete production only add CO2.

@NewScientist 2 ай бұрын

Learn more about the role of wood in construction in Paris: www.newscientist.com/article/mg26234940-400-embrace-wooden-buildings-for-the-sake-of-your-health-and-the-planets/

@Ninth_Penumbra 2 ай бұрын

● My primary concern with wood as a construction material is its _flammability_ (which admittedly varies from species to species, with some tropical hardwoods being extremely resistant to low temperature fires) I live in Australia, which has an abundance of wonderful native timbers, but our construction must be planned around our terrible (and shockingly more potent & frequent since ACC kicked in) bushfires, making flammable woods considered a liability. The future of this wood-based construction initiative is going to be profoundly affected by the first really big fire in these apartments & how effective the integrated fire detection/fighting infrastructure is at offsetting the flammability of the wooden construction. ● While they discussed the psychological & environmental benefits of using architectural woods in place of concrete, the sources of the woods for the specific cross-laminated wood/s they are using are also important - especially whether they were grown through harmful monoculture plantations (like pinewood). ● The thermal insulation properties of these cross-laminated structural woods are going to be more & more important as Anthropogenic Climate Change leads to much hotter, drier summers and colder, more turbulent, stormy winters. Better building insulation means less energy needs to be used in small, wasteful, airconditioning systems & heaters. ● There are also a remarkable number of "synthetic" woods made of fast-growing plant fibres (like bamboo & and hemp) compacted & glued together with resins, which can have truly remarkable structural strengths (almost akin to mild steel) & can even be made to order to support quite long spans (for purposes like cantilevered balconies or long ceiling support beams).

@dylantorres2406 Ай бұрын

Wow! Thanks for sharing your ideas. All food for thought. What do you do for work? Just started my career as a mechanical engineer. I wanna get into a field like infrastructure or some type of industry to use my skills to help secure better future in the face of climate change. Any recommendations/ideas?

@Ninth_Penumbra Ай бұрын

@dylantorres2406 That's unfortunately not something that I know much about. However, a quick look through some of the more ...interesting... engineering adjacent characters/channels (that I know 'bout) on KZfaq may give you some inspiration. ● *Tom Scott* (Genius Analyzes Cutting Edge Engineering Projects) [ youtube.com/@tomscottgo?si=LcJZi1hmFJwq2hwE ] ● *Art of Rendering* (Mechanical Principles) [ kzfaq.info8vTWuRIO0U8?si=-9rywDIshiA9_783 ] ● *Integza* (Rocketry Lunatic & Solanum Antagonist) [ kzfaq.info/get/bejne/pZN3Z5iAtMiXYnU.htmlsi=q4BNzEVq_KFte2ha ] ● *James Bruton* (Robotic Engineering) [ kzfaq.info/get/bejne/fLyfpMlomMCwiqM.htmlsi=emjO-Rsj2r10p_uv ] ● *Maker's Muse* (3D Printing Tech) [ youtube.com/@makersmuse?si=cwTk8Qja8AN1VWd9 ] ● *Plasma Channel* [ kzfaq.info/get/bejne/m7-GqqlltK2ReGg.htmlsi=7HXz4EDt9f9ONpyU ]

@Ninth_Penumbra Ай бұрын

@dylantorres2406 Unfortunately, *Environmental Engineering* isn't something that I know much about precisely. If I wanted to make a guess, though, I'd say that (due to the consequences of *Anthropogenic Climate Change)* maintaining essential supplies of *Potable Water* _(uncontaminated with Lead / Heavy Metals, Fracking Chemicals, Microplastics, Industrial / Biological Contaminants, Human Sewerage, etc.)_ is going to become one of the great engineering challenges of this century. So, I reckon it's an area that you ought to take a serious look at. Specific things like: ▪︎ *Protecting / remediating Groundwater systems from Fracking (+) contamination,* ▪︎ *Developing efficient Stormwater divergence / storage systems for cities,* ▪︎ *Protecting coastlines from mass erosion due to rising sea levels,* ▪︎ *Water storage / distribution systems for cities (including more efficient Desalination plants),* ● *Higher efficiency passive cooling systems for air-conditioning entire buildings with minimal water waste,* ▪︎ *Advanced Bioremediation systems for human sewerage (instead of polluting rivers / lakes / oceans with literal **_gigatonnes_** of human waste)* If you want a real challenge, then thanks to decades of neglect & an insane lack of proper funding for infrastructure projects (even in wealthy countries like the United States), there are thousands of *Bridges* about to disintegrate due to decades of _"Concrete Cancer"_ (held together with rust, patches & prayers - mostly prayers) as well as an equivalent number of *Dams* that are who knows how long _(they cut funding for the inspectors, too)_ from catastrophically failing & drowning entire towns... Lastly, here are some of the more ...interesting... engineering adjacent people/channels on KZfaq to inspire you: ● *Tom Scott* (A genius who analyzes cutting edge engineering projects) ● *Art of Rendering* (Mechanical systems / principles rendered in 3D) ● *Integza* (Rocketry Lunatic/Genius & Solanum Antagonist) ● *James Bruton* (Robotic Engineering Genius) ● *Maker's Muse* (3D Printing Guru) ● *Plasma Channel* (Ionic Thrusters, etc.) [ My post with the actual links unfortunately went bye-bye ] Good luck with your career, mate. ~▪︎●▪︎~ (+) - Fracking is a pet hate of mine. It's one of those technologies which look great on paper, but tends to have major problems in practice. There are about 15-20 technical factors that each must be properly accounted for when designing, building & running a fracking system, so all it takes is for a corporation (that doesn't give two shits about the environment) to cut a few corners here & there *_(Quaestus Super Omnia!),_* and groundwater that has been pristine for hundreds (if not thousands) of years - and which a few thousand local people rely on for drinking water - gets (perhaps *_permanently)_* contaminated with Neurotoxins, Carcinogens & (worst of all) Teratogens...

@prisciladealmeidaleone9654 2 ай бұрын

Yep, wood is a beautiful building material, but where did they get all that wood from? I wouldn't think France supplied it all.

@Rok.. Ай бұрын

That is always my point. They chop it illegally in Romania. Sell it to Austrian companies that than shape the wood and sell it to the European market. Its the regrowth lie we hear so many time.