All Posts in Weeknotes from Low2No

41. Week in Review

Fri, 07 Oct 2011 04:26:00 +0300

BIM model screen shot of Sitra's timber office ©Arup

Back on the job here at Low2No. Work has been proceeding at a blistering pace in London and Berlin as our design team prepares to deliver our L2, or design development, drawings next week. This is a significant point in the project's progression as "end of L2" is when the local designers will take a leadership role in project implementation.

Interior BIM model screen shot of Sitra's timber office ©Arup

This month is the moment when the client team will step back and perform two critical tasks: costing and project review. Even in strong markets, a €60M investment can cause some consternation. But as the euro's stability decreases with every news cycle, we have some difficult decisions ahead of us.

We are committed to a triple bottom line plus carbon (TBL+CO2) approach and will review this next phase with this principle as our top level priority. It is increasingly clear that planning requirements and real estate costs make development in Helsinki difficult, especially without basic government support instruments (such as feed-in-tariffs), but we hope to find a way to make a low carbon, mixed-use development economically viable.

BIM model screen shot of Sitra's timber office ©Arup

Interior BIM model screen shot of Sitra's timber office ©Arup

The client team is working to develop a joint company (landlord/janitor company) to own and manage the block's common infrastructure, energy infrastructure (PV), commercial space, and parking. When developing a block-wide sustainable solution, shared ownership provides critical synergistic benefits and is necessary to manage the block's shared resources as one entity. A joint management company solution is a new step toward social sustainability in Finland.

Sitra is also organizing a meeting with leadership from the real estate industry who are involved in writing new legislation for "3D" real estate formation (mixed-use code)—possibly to be implemented for the first time in our block. A mixed-use code will allow challenging ownership conditions to be overcome more easily, such as the one we face in our block, where the basement can have property lines independent from above ground property.

Word comes from Jukka this week on two projects he is shepherding: the European 11 Competition (he is a jury member and will tell more once it is public) and a board meeting of the LAICA project which helps individuals commercialize innovative energy solutions. The Energy Programme has continued to expand its impact and we look forward to more.

22. Week in Review

Sun, 05 Jun 2011 13:52:00 +0300

Some great video from Demos at Low2No camp in Berlin:

Nice work! We hope to have a guest post from the Demos folks once everyone has had some time to reflect.

Low2No Informatics Workbook

Also this week, it is time that I catch up on some overdue news. I am very happy to announce that Dan Hill of Arup and City of Sound fame (among others) has brought his family to Helsinki and joined our team! Dan was instrumental in framing and delivering Low2No’s informatics workstream on the design team side (see some of his Low2No Informatics Workbook below). We are lucky to now have him on the client side, although I am sure he feels a bit of whiplash. As he settles into his role at here at Sitra, look for him to uncover realization of the informatics workstream and Sitra’s organizational evolution into its new HQ through his future posts. In addition to being a tremendous ambassador for the project, he will be key in developing what’s next for Low2No. Welcome Dan!

Low2No Informatics Workbook

21. Week in Review

Fri, 27 May 2011 18:01:00 +0300

This week, a reminder of one of principal motivations for this project:

Ruoholahti Coal Delivery from Sitra- Finnish Innovation Fund

What you see is coal from Eastern Europe or Russia being offloaded into hoppers that carry the coal into one of the world's largest underground coal storage facilities. Ruoholahti used to be home to another "world's largest." See the 8 story coal pile that used to be stored above ground before the cavern was completed.

Jätkäsaari as seen from the south. In the white box is one of the city's largest combined heat and power plants and it's coal pile in the background

There are many issues raised by this footage: carbon emissions, climate change, energy security, wealth transfer, independence, etc. In some ways, it is unfortunate that Ruoholahti's coal pile has been pushed underground, out of public view.

16-20. Week in Review

Wed, 25 May 2011 17:01:00 +0300

It's been a busy four weeks:

The design team delivered the schematic design document set.
The client team pored over the drawings and Arup's very useful Basis of Design documents to find out just what the last year of work has lead to and where changes/clarifications need to be made.
Comment sets were issued to the design team by each client.

The design team has now taken the comments and begun the arduous task of incorporating them into the design to produce the final schematic design of the Low2No block. This level of design basically locks-in the overall design of the project (massing, structures, MEP, etc) and its performance targets. The project will soon shift into a mode more focused on implementation with upcoming goals including permitting and detailed costing.

Design of the "public bits" of the project has also been ramping up. Facades, landscaping, community areas and retail are all taking shape in very exciting ways! Check out some of the landscaping diagrams in the next post!

Low2No Camp on the ferry back to Helsinki [Demos Helsinki 2010]

In other news, our Energy Programme has initiated a project with Demos Helsinki and Experientia called Low2No Camp (their blog is here). The aim is to mobilize a group of city activists who are already carrying out actions which support low-carbon living, food, and services and attempt to develop groundbreaking projects in the spirit of Low2No. The project began mid May in Berlin at the DMY Berlin International Design Festival.

Low2No Camp in Berlin [Demos Helsinki 2010]

In order to kick-start the projects, a roundtable will be held in the coming months, gathering various stakeholders to whom the ideas will be presented with the hope of mobilizing local businesses to start developing opportunities for sustainable urban living.

Also, last week I participated in a panel discussion on integrating design into city planning at the New Finnish Design Scenarios event held in NYC and hosted by the Finnish Consulate. Together with Rick Bell (Executive Director AIA NY), Hannu Kähönen (CEO of Creadesign), David Resnik (Deputy Commissioner NYC DDC) and moderator Peter MacKeith (Associate Dean, School of Design and Visual Arts Washington University), we tried to tease out some similarities between NYC and Helsinki (of which there seem to be few!) and share our experiences working in the often difficult city planning machinery. One theme that received the most attention was the degree of control that cities exercise over their spatial evolution. NYC seems to rely more on the carrot than the stick, incentivizing developers and architects to pursue spatial, social and environmental goals by providing special conditions that are favorable to their bottom lines. The City of Helsinki, on the other hand, rigidly defines the "areas" in which an architect or developer can work, carefully circumscribing what is possible in the city. For a panel interested in introducing/preserving design in city planning, you can imagine which side we favored.

14-15. Week in Review

Tue, 19 Apr 2011 17:49:00 +0300

Low2No is developing greater detail on many fronts: from cost estimates and coordination studies to synergistic mechanical systems and sky lights in the sauna. The volume of work is growing exponentially putting pressure both on our ability to apprehend the state of the project as well as the efficacy of our archiving systems (our Basecamp site is ballooning!).

As we close on summer, many of our outstanding design decisions should be made, allowing me to share publicly more project images and information. Check back!

Project output is piling up!

12-13. Week in Review

Tue, 05 Apr 2011 18:05:00 +0300

Design continues in Helsinki. We have been working to coordinate building components such as air handling equipment and photo voltaic panels on the buildings' roofs, fresh air intakes and facade build-ups, etc. Energy modelling is becoming more refined for the apartments and Sitra's offices. It seems likely that we will be able to achieve our progressive energy targets. Simultaneously, Arup has begun a cost effectiveness analysis of our energy strategy that under-girds our energy targets. Taken together, the strategy and costing will provide a valuable reference for future projects in Helsinki that will be looking to blow past regulations and current industry practices.

Eat&Joy © Dan Hill

Sauerbruch Hutton is turning a bit of its attention to design of the retail spaces. Our retailers/service providers needs are being collected and coordinated by Eeropekka Rislakki, one of Eat&Joy's founders. One of our designers' challenges will be to translate the retailer's specs into spaces that are specific, yet adaptable for future alternative needs. Of all of the Low2No block's potential benefits, the vibrancy it will add to the Jatkasaari neighborhood will likely be the most evident and talked about by Helsinki's residents. It is our hope that this will make clear that carbon mitigation is yes, an abstract, difficult goal, but in realizing it, we can enjoy a better more delicious life.

Eat&Joy © Dan Hill

Week 13 also marked the first full push toward a new low2no.org! We have contracted with local firm Muotohiomo to provide graphics and user experience and Austin, Texas based XOXCO building the site and reusing some of the backend they originally developed for helsinkidesignlab.org. Exciting!

11. Week in Review

Fri, 25 Mar 2011 21:55:00 +0200

Week 11 marked the beginning of our co-location scheme described last week. While I was not there, this method seems to already be bearing fruit. The design of the block is beginning to "click" according to Marco, and the disparate needs of the client partners are being translated into the project in a more robust and rapid way. Good news for everyone as we are closing in on our June detail design deadline.

One challenge has been Finland's still somewhat mysterious floor area measurement unit: the "kem." Kem boils down to a way of calculating a development's square meters minus a deduction for mechanical systems and a standard dimensional deduction for insulation/wall cavity. As an unusual Finnish construct, this has caused some confusion among the design team, but through an aggressive auditing regime, we all seem to now share an understanding of exactly what "22,000 kem of allowable development area" means and that the Low2No block will meet this allowance.

Sketch of the block plan and detail of interior "deck" over the basement

Detail design is a flicker between scales. The designer is at once designing at the scale of a city block and the detailed scale of material connections at key interfaces. The simultaneous flood of sketches and plans on our project's Basecamp site is testament to this exciting phase that separates architectural design from so many other disciplines. Here we are endeavoring to transform abstract ideas into concrete, purpose-built things.

07-10. Week in Review

Wed, 16 Mar 2011 21:58:00 +0200

basecamp is blowing up

The last three weeks have had a pace that is at times blistering and occasionally seemingly at a stand still. This is, I think a product of this phase of the project where teams are working out specific issues in focused, small teams. Arup has been tackling structural and ventilation issues while Sauerbruch Hutton has been finalizing detail design of the apartments, service areas and Sitra's new HQ. Experientia continues to push forward our demand management systems and low carbon retail and service offerings.

Communication between teams (both client and design) continues to be a challenge. This is partially due to the technical nature of the work at this stage as well as the diaspora that is the project team, but there are many other factors as well. To improve communication and mitigate the impact of miscommunication, we have initiated a co-location scheme where representatives from each firm will work together in Helsinki 2-3 days each week. This is bad news for our carbon footprint, but good news for our aggressive project schedule and ambitious scope. The days in Helsinki will mostly be spent in focused working sessions, but each week will conclude with an all-team meeting chaired by Marco, with an exciting output for those of us working abroad: meeting minutes! It seems likely that we will realize progress on the project's most complicated challenges much more quickly and effectively over the coming weeks. Hopefully I will be able to post more fresh content from the project to this blog as well.

Marco, using our geotechnical report to point out the block's position over one of the original granite islands of Jätkäsaari

As I mentioned a few weeks ago, work has commenced on site. And the results are in! Well, geotechnical results anyway. But exciting nonetheless. Our assumptions about our site's location over one of Jätkäsaari's original granite islands were correct. This will translate into a smaller foundation (read lower embodied carbon) and an interesting condition for our geothermal pre-heating/cooling system. But more on that later.

Also, exciting news! Low2No.org will be refreshed soon. Finally we will be moving on from the site's current competition focus to one that covers not only the city block in Jätkäsaari, but also the continued development of Low2No as an idea about how to transition our cities to a low carbon future. We hope to have more rich content streams, both visual and textual, as well as guest authors writing on related issues. Stay tuned.

A little local press (in English)

Fri, 04 Mar 2011 22:07:00 +0200

We are Helsinki (the city's free culture magazine) published this interesting take on the Low2No project. Take a look!

Screen shot from Low2No's writeup in We Are Helsinki

Project update coming soon, I promise.

Interim sketch of the block's interior

06. Week in Review

Tue, 15 Feb 2011 22:15:00 +0200

Other than the Low2No conference covered in the previous post, this week's big news: work is commencing on site! A detailed geotechnical evaluation was conducted to determine just where our site sits above one of Jätkäsaari's original 3 islands, and to what degree we will need to contend with fill or steeply sloping rock when it comes time to building our foundations or drilling geothermal bore holes.

Jätkäsaari is starting to grow: note the rubble piles that will become part of the harbor's massive regrading project

Sitra, SRV and VVO together with an outsized legal team began the painful legal wrangling that will determine exactly how the shared infrastructure of the block will be managed. In this case, we are extending "infrastructure" to include soft things like the retail and services that will be a part of every building on the block, as well as more traditional forms of infrastructure such as the parking level. In this case we will also be adding photovoltaic and geothermal systems to the infrastructure list.

As it is not within the normal business purview of any one client partner, these critical components that enable us to create a truly mixed-use block that leverage synergies between elements to productive effect, such as reducing per capita carbon emissions and improving enery efficiency, will need to be carefully developed and safeguarded. First and foremost, a legal framework has to be developed that sets the conditions of ownership and partnership, especially among the retailers. Risk must be handled in a way that makes each client partner comfortable in investing in the block's non-standard components. And tax issues and future liabilities must be imagined and addressed. This is no small task. But if done right, it could be one of the most transferrable products of the Low2No project thus far.

Carbon mitigation via investments in renewables organized at the district scale.

This week we also broke ground a short study that will hopefully shed some light on the potential for financial mechanisms as a carbon mitigation tools working at the district scale. One of the many compelling ideas in the Low2No competition was turning Jätkäsaari into a carbon neutral district by creating a revolving fund that would invest in renewable, carbon-free electricity generation. The idea was strong, but Jätkäsaari's long development time frame made it quite difficult to implement as residents and business will be trickling in over the next 15 years. So, together with GreenStream Network here in Helsinki, Sami Tuhkanen from Energy and I will do a quick survey of what's happening now in Finland in this space and provide a set of recommendations for future initiatives.

05. Week in Review

Tue, 08 Feb 2011 22:58:00 +0200

Sitra office flexible ownership and occupation study

It was a fairly quiet week this week. Marco and I were on conference calls with Sauerbruch Hutton and Arup every two days to help push along the Sitra office design. We found that frequent communication helps to reduce surprises while allowing us to refine our design goals without having to issue the perfect, comprehensive brief. The challenge with so much communication is to back off and let the designers do their work.

Timber core finite element analysis

Johanna brings word that Sitra's in-house sustainability/carbon reduction activities are ramping up. There are 18 different action areas all geared toward reducing Sitra's carbon footprint. They broadly fall into 6 groups: communications, transport, energy and material efficiency, procurements and waste.

Special attention is being paid to the people that will analyze and implement the low carbon actions. Our new headquarters will only enable choices, we still need to make sure that they are good ones.

04. Week in Review

Wed, 02 Feb 2011 23:19:00 +0200

This week our design team has been working frantically to finalize the concept phase documents to reflect the decisions that have been taken by the client team. The project needs to quickly move into the design development phase if we are going to meet our permitting targets later this year.

Timber framing sketch for Sitra Office

Sitra's project team has been working closely with Sauerbruch Hutton and Arup to further develop our timber office solution. It seems that we have found a good way to deal with the limitations imposed by fire classifications and now massing and interior layout studies are in full swing. We hope to reveal a fairly comprehensive schematic design during the February 8th event!

Timber cassette sketch for Sitra Office

Jukka brings word from the Low2No Board that we will be naming the block something other than Low2No–a decision that reflects our purposeful distinction between the Low2No "Model" and the products it generates. Like naming a child, this has been extremely difficult and unfortunately we will not be able to take advantage of the Finnish tradition of waiting 6 months or so after birth to find the best name!

Jukka also hosted the Nordisk InnovationsCenter as they visited Sitra on Thursday. Sustainable buildings are coming on to their agenda and Low2No seems to be an interesting benchmark for them. Hopefully we will have a chance to share Low2No with them in the coming months.

03. Week in Review

Fri, 28 Jan 2011 23:35:00 +0200

This week, Marco and I were with Bryan at the Umeå Institute of Design conducting a strategic design studio with students. Umeå is a beautiful town and the compressed studio experience was exhausting, but interesting and fun. Some results here.

Umeå bicyclists on ice

On Wednesday we took a break from Umeå to host a Low2No meeting at Sitra's offices in Helsinki. On the table was fire protection, centralized versus decentralized ventilation systems, PV system sizing and integration, and ground floor planning. Progress was made, but it was hard-fought. As we get ever closer to a real set of buildings, with real dimensions, real systems and real costs, the more distant we become philosophically. This is one of the great challenges with "sustainability" as a goal: it is everything and nothing and everyone brings individual understanding to the table. Even with "carbon" as the operative goal of the project, carbon mitigation cannot be done at all costs. Economy, ecology and society must be balanced as much as possible in the solution.

Updates from the field:

Johanna attended the First Sustainable Infrastructure Financing Summit in Basel. Eco-cities were the hot topic at the gathering, and with good reason: with 70% of the global population projected to be living in cities by 2050, our cities will be the site of greatest potential for mitigating and adapting to climate change. Johanna was struck by one other statistic: over the next 40 years, there will be more urban development than the last 4000 years all together. One might wonder how will we will transition our cities to cope with this massive change!

Tuula Laitinen brings word that our questionnaire for future residents of Jätkäsaari is nearly ready for prime time. The 20 questions from the study will be folded into a larger study to be published this spring looking into the future of the city in Finland.

And Marco has been thinking about Abe Lincoln:

Give me six hours to chop down a tree and I will spend the first four sharpening the axe.

02. Week in Review

Sat, 15 Jan 2011 23:45:00 +0200

The project team kicked-off 2011 with an intense, but effective meeting at Arup's London offices. Topics discussed ranged from the structural efficiency afforded by different basement layouts to agreeing on a method of energy performance modelling for the block.

Fire planning has emerged as a significant factor influencing schematic design of the block. As has been stated, Sitra has set a timber construction solution as a top priority for the office building, but Finnish fire regulations currently do not allow multi-story timber buildings. The Energy Programme has been working closely with the authorities to expedite changes currently under final review to the fire code with the hopes that final approval will happen in time for our building permit review.

Complications to building massing arise whenever you bring one type of fire classification into contact with another. In other words, timber and concrete buildings do not play nicely together according to the fire code and thus need to be separated into their own areas in the playground. The design team has been looking at ways to overcome what would seem to be an inevitable outcome through smart, hybrid structural and facade solutions that unify the Sitra timber building with its neighbors, and I am quite encouraged. Sketches of the massing and urban character of the block will be revealed during our 08 February event and I will post images here shortly after.

We have also been looking at how to meet our onsite electricity production goals and the early indications suggest that despite the short days in winter, Helsinki's long summer days may allow us to produce as much as 240,000 kWh per year. This will require both rooftop and building integrated solar technologies. Studies are now underway to determine the most appropriate technology for this northern application and how that technology will be integrated into the building just like any other building material.

All insolation is not created equally.

One interesting question emerging out of the solar technology debate is how to adapt a desert technology to a northern climate. Luckily for us, technology is being developed and some are even market ready that seek to fill this void. Most seem to rely on increasing the solar energy capture area to take advantage of diffuse and reflected light, since the efficiency of the various semiconductor materials seems to be more or less stable.

Of course, underlying all of our debate is the brutal reality that if Finland does not enact a feed-in-tariff for solar technologies, the payback period for a PV array will be beyond the life of the building. Cheap, abundant energy has been a topic political priority in Finland for decades as it has been a stimulus to Finland's heavy industries. There is a slow awakening in the government to necessity/long term value of a feed-in-tariff for small producers, but its certainty is anything but guaranteed.

Coming to terms with the economic side of the triple bottom line.

So if a principle of the Low2No model is to seek to balance the competing interests of economy, ecology and society, how do we answer the dismal net present value projections of solar technologies? Ouch! Brain damage.

01. Week in Review

Sun, 09 Jan 2011 23:52:00 +0200

Happy New Year!

Week 01 of 2011 was surprisingly busy, but mostly with internal processes that are gearing up for events and publications later this winter and spring. For instance, we have come to recognize that ventilation (mechanical versus natural or mixed) is one of the most contentious issues in Finland's sustainable building debate. We have struggled mightily with the conflict between natural ventilation's apparent incompatibility with Finland's strict indoor air quality standards and its promise as a way to reduce building energy demand.

Studying the effects of massing on energy consumption

Three elements of a low carbon building: demand reduction; onsite energy generation; and green energy delivery to the site.

As we go deeper into the issue, significant fundamental questions have emerged: is Finland's air quality standard too strictly calibrated to an imaginary Finn who demands room temperature be regulated to the tenth of a degree? In other words, as we have seen in healthcare, is statistical analysis getting in the way of physical science (in this case, building physics)? Is worker productivity significantly impacted by fluidity or variation in light and temperature? Is "worker productivity" an outdated relic of Finland's brief industrial era? Do knowledge workers need a nearly silent environment to do their best work?

The answers to these questions cannot be answered by Sitra and thus we are sounding out a possible public event held in the spring where we use Low2No as a test case and examine the impacts of different ventilation, lighting and acoustical conditions on the indoor environment. It seems that for the first Low2No block, our options in this area may be limited. But that does not mean that we are excused from carefully studying current regulations and questioning their performance in the face of larger goals such as improved energy efficiency and facilitating a modern, knowledge-driven workplace. We hope that a public debate will around the conditions/demands we faced and the decisions we made will help push forward the important work of aligning regulatory intent with building performance.

51-52. Week in Review

Thu, 30 Dec 2010 00:03:00 +0200

Low2No is a product of many motivations. One is a belief that "demonstration projects" are of limited efficacy in terms of their ability to impact business as usual operations. Here is an excerpt from some recent writing:

The Low2No project has emerged out of uneasiness with the long-term value and importance of so called "demonstration projects." Demonstration projects rely on an exemption from important dynamics that limit other projects from achieving the same objectives. Typically, this exemption comes in the form of an unlimited budget. But by not addressing budget or the economic realities of the situation, the demonstration project cannot be replicated as other, future actors will not have an unlimited budget. Therefore Low2No seeks to balance economy, ecology & society in each decision that is made. We recognize that this will not yield the perfect solution in the first instance, but it will help us make real progress toward the perfect solution.

Experientia future resident workshop

This is in part why we are so happy to be working with Experientia. Through their participatory design process, they have been able to cull remarkable insights into the needs of our future residents. With this knowledge, the client and design team can tailor the project's housing and services in a way that will make the block desireable, increasing the chances that the project's principles will be taken up and repeated.

49. Week in Review

Tue, 14 Dec 2010 18:06:00 +0200

Carefully measured compromise has been the name of the game this week. Deep in the DNA of Low2No is an embrace of market pressures, dominant business models and political realities. We know that complete/unilateral solutions (such as Masdar) and wholesale adoption of entirely new risk models are not plausible expectations for the sustainable redevelopment of our cities. This distinguishes Low2No as a transitional strategy that works with conditions as they are found on the ground in developed cities and economies, and proposes a pathway forward toward a carbon-balanced built environment. Low2No is a way to move from here to there when we know that the there is not possible now.

Jätkäsaari (background) and Ruoholahti (foreground) seen from Sitra's 11th floor, December 2010

As much as we would like to deliver the No-carbon project as the first instance of Low2No, we must keep in mind that this could happen only if we created an exemption from the forces that we claim to embrace.

As such, the client team has agreed on some crucial elements that will guide detailed development of the Low2No block. First, we will use the Energy Performance of Buildings Directive (EPBD) as a baseline for energy consumption and production targets. While the final interpretation and implementation of the EPBD will be agreed upon by each Member State over the next 18 months (with 2020 as the implementation target), we have agreed on a rough interpretation for Low2No that we hope will serve as a model for Finland’s internal debate. This will be discussed more in subsequent posts, but boils down to construction of nearly net-zero energy buildings with some onsite production capacity.

Second, Sitra will pursue a timber-based solution for the office building. Our commitment to timber stems from a recognition of its untapped potential in the Finnish market, aesthetic and structural qualities, carbon sequestration capacity and its potential for reuse. The residential buildings will likely be primarily concrete with timber added where possible (again, compromise).

Third, we will continue to develop robust demand management systems and a low carbon commercial and service strategy. More on this great work later.

Elsewhere, Jukka brings us word that the Ministry of Environment is continuing its work on incorporating timber construction up to 8 floors into the Finnish building code. It is hoped that draft regulations will be completed soon and the final steps will be finished by Spring 2011, during the final year of the present government. It may be a little late for Low2No, but we hope the regulatory authorities will see our project as a chance to test coming codes.

Also, the Ministry of Employment and the Economy (TEM) has announced a national center for energy advice. This is built on work that Sitra’s Energy Programme initiated almost two years ago when it began to finance energy advisory pilot projects.

48. Week in Review

Mon, 06 Dec 2010 18:16:00 +0200

Labor disputes and heavy snowfall were the dominant factors affecting the Low2No innovation pipeline this week. Myself and most of the Finnish delegation did manage to reach Garmisch for the final two days of Forum Holzbau. The message was quite clear: industrialized timber construction has achieved maturity–it is a highly durable and economically competitive alternative to concrete. We were presented residential projects from around central Europe, Sweden and the UK that were either wholly timber, or a majority timber/concrete hybrid that had achieved significant time and logistical reductions, rapid sales to desirable demographics, and CO2 savings.

Matti Mikkola from Stora Enso Timber based in Helsinki walked through a comparison study recently completed on several 4 to 7 story cross laminated timber (CLT) buildings in different central European and Nordic markets. Their findings were compelling: while a component-to-component cost comparison reveals a -20% to +200% cost premium of CLT over concrete, the whole building cost for timber was only 3% greater than concrete because of savings from time reduction and collateral benefits such as reduced foundation size. Matti’s belief is that once the CLT industry begins to standardize production methods and product platforms in the next 2-5 years, timber construction will be highly competitive with concrete.

From a regulatory perspective, Dr. Andreas Neumüller from Holzforschung Austria and Dr. Gerhard Schickhofer from TU Graz see harmonization of European timber construction standards in the next 5 years. This will allow developers and architects to treat timber as an equal construction method to concrete and steel, without applying for special exemption or approval.

The combined experience of the speakers and attendees was that timber construction:

is capable of high capacity, complex structures
uses connections that are simple & easy to build & inspect
reduces staging & costs through prefabrication
improves performance of downstream trades because of flexibility
currently competes with a 3-5% premium over concrete
attracts desirable consumer groups
is sustainable/benefits from a stable, predictable resource supply

And in addition, way down the list, timber buildings generally sequester more carbon than is released during their construction into one of the most durable products made: buildings. This may not matter to developers, but it is significant because as nations confront the challenge of climate change, they will push their municipalities to favor timber construction as part of a highly efficient building package through regulations and incentives designed to drive down direct and indirect emissions sources. Now is the time to learn how to build again with timber.

Some of the new timber frame connection technology on display at Forum Holzbau 2010 in Garmisch, DE

In other news, the Low2No client team had a two day strategy session on Thursday and Friday to give shape to our decisions that will guide work in the design development phase. Finding common ground between 3 very different clients is difficult, but we are making progress. More to come soon!

This week, Jukka Noponen and Sitra’s Energy Programme together with the Tampere Central Region conducted an Urban Growth Boundary workshop. Robin McArthur, Director of Planning and Development from the regional governing body Metro in Portland, Oregon discussed Portland’s successful sprawl management program. Sprawl management has again surfaced as an important issue in Finland as its cities grow and rural areas empty out. But it is also a highly sensitive political issue that most stakeholders have been unwilling to address with real measures. During the workshop, Jukka saw many similar features between Metro’s management program and Finland’s planning tools that, with some slight reworking could accomplish similar outcomes.

The rest of the team was diving into the Low2No schematic phase documents. With building plans in hand, Tuula Laitinen has been able to push Low2No’s visual identity with our partners. Johanna Kirkinen found great interest in the design team’s proposals for the lifestyle/behavior dimension of the Low2No block. It is clear to everyone that environmental concerns will not be the primary driver of behavior change. It will have to come from a perception or realization of reduced costs and energy associated risks, improved health and comparative analysis of one’s own energy use with those in their immediate community. This last part must be done carefully as past experience has shown that more information is not always better.