It seems logical, but sometimes the most logical things are those we do the least: in the Netherlands, it is going to be mandatory by law that 20% of the materials in new buildings must be wood. Conclusions:
-The use of concrete will be reduced.
-This will generate much less CO2 (we don’t have to explain that wood is cleaner than concrete, do we?)
-The price of buildings will not go up.
-It will not affect the stability of the structures.
The novelty does not come from the use of wood, but from the legal obligation. Of course, you know what can happen: if the use of wood were to go up (if it were to go up a lot), the debate on sustainable forestry would be reopened. The truth is that the forestry debate has never been fully closed.
But that debate has already been opened: in Canada, they wanted to build a 120-metre (30-storey) building with wood… and it was stopped because the use of wood was considered excessive. Instead, Ottawa and Vancouver airports use a lot of wood.
Right now, the tallest building built with wood is in Austria and is called LifeCycle. It is 9 storeys high, which seems small compared to the 30 storeys in Canada.
In any case, we may soon start to see a lot more wood in our cities; it has been going on for a long time in the villages. From time to time we should learn from the past.
