Scandinavia utilises its wood resources to lead a global trend toward creating eco-friendly high-rises. The Sara Cultural Centre gleams in the sunlight and dominates the skyline of the Swedish town of Skelleftea, made entirely out of wood.

The biggest advantage of working with wood is that it is more environmentally friendly.

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Because they generate large volumes of carbon dioxide, a major greenhouse gas, cement used to build concrete and steel, two of the most prevalent construction materials, are among the most polluting industries.

The Sara Cultural Centre, fashioned entirely of spruce and rising 75 metres (246 ft) over rows of snow-dusted dwellings and the surrounding forest, is one of the world’s tallest timber buildings.

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Swedish architects now seek to lead a revolution and drive the industry toward more sustainable construction methods as massive wooden buildings spring up in Sweden and neighbouring Nordic countries as industrial processes advance.

The 20-story timber edifice, which incorporates a hotel, a library, an exhibition hall, and theatre stages, began in the northern town of 35,000 inhabitants at the end of 2021.

Much of Sweden’s northern areas are covered in forests, the majority of which are spruce, and building timber dwellings is a long-standing tradition.

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During a tour of the cultural centre, Therese Kreisel, a Skelleftea urban planning officer, told AFP,  “the combination of the pillars and beams, as well as the interaction of steel and wood, is what carries the hotel’s 20 stories. Even the lift shafts are constructed entirely of wood. There is no plaster, no seal, no isolation on the wood, this is unusual for a 20-story building.”

Wood produces minimal CO2 and maintains the carbon absorbed by the tree even after it is chopped and utilised in a building structure. According to the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, wood as a building material can be up to 30 times less carbon-intensive than concrete and hundreds or even thousands of times less than steel.

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The construction of the spruce cultural centre was “much more challenging, but it has also opened openings to truly think in new ways,” according to Schmitz’s co-architect Oskar Norelius.

The hotel rooms, for example, are “stacked like Lego pieces on site.”

Several architectural awards have been awarded to the structure. Timber has several advantages, according to Anders Berensson, another Stockholm architect who prefers wood.

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Only an 85-meter tower recently built in neighbouring Norway and an 84-meter edifice in Vienna are taller than the Sara Cultural Centre.

A structure now under construction in the US city of Milwaukee and set to be completed shortly is likely to be the world’s tallest, standing at a little more than 86 metres.

Cederhusen, a wood-framed apartment complex in Stockholm with characteristic yellow and red cedar shingles on the front, is nearing completion.