Architecture

World's tallest timber tower is a triumph of sustainable design

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Rocket&Tigerli will rise to a height of 100 meters above the courtyard, and is expected to be completed and ready for residents to move in to by 2026
Schmidt Hammer Lassen
Rocket&Tigerli will rise to a height of 100 meters above the courtyard, and is expected to be completed and ready for residents to move in to by 2026
Schmidt Hammer Lassen
Rocket&Tigerli will be the world's tallest all-timber tower and reach an impressive maximum height of 100 m (328 ft)
Schmidt Hammer Lassen
Rocket&Tigerli will consist of a timber frame and core, with an exterior finished in terracotta
Schmidt Hammer Lassen
Rocket&Tigerli will include a mixture of residential space, student housing and a restaurant
Schmidt Hammer Lassen
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The rapid rate of progress for tall timber construction continues with an ambitious new residential tower designed by Danish firm Schmidt Hammer Lassen. Named Rocket&Tigerli, the building will be the world's tallest timber tower once complete, with an impressive maximum height of 100 m (328 ft).

Rocket&Tigerli is being created in collaboration with Cometti Truffer Hodel and will be located in the Swiss city of Winterthur, near Zürich. The project will actually include three other smaller buildings as well as the tower, and will host residential space, student housing, a restaurant, retail spaces, a sky-bar and a hotel. The renders depict the buildings topped with greenery and the interiors look light-filled and open, with the decor sensibly showing off the natural beauty of the wood.

The tower's exterior will be clad in terracotta (which, like timber, can be produced sustainably) and it will consist of a timber frame and a timber core. This latter point is very important, as while there are other hybrid timber towers planned that will be even taller, their hybrid nature means that they have a concrete core hosting the elevator and staircases. The current tallest all-timber building – that is, with a timber core – is the 85.4-meter-tall (280-ft) Mjøstårnet. Its engineers had to overcome significant challenges, including swaying, just to reach that height – so Rocket&Tigerli really will break new ground and we're keen to learn more as it progresses.

Rocket&Tigerli will be the world's tallest all-timber tower and reach an impressive maximum height of 100 m (328 ft)
Schmidt Hammer Lassen

"The project marks a milestone in the construction of timber buildings – not solely because of its 100 meters (328 ft), which set the record for residential buildings with a load-bearing timber construction, but also because it introduces an innovative construction system that examines wood as a natural replacement for concrete," explained the firm. "The Swiss company Implenia and the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology of Zürich, ETH, have worked together in developing the new system, which allows the construction of taller timber buildings.

"In the new system, the concrete core has been replaced with wood, resulting in the fact that the individual beam comes in at a lower weight. This makes it possible to build taller constructions while, at the same time, ensures that the entire building process achieves a lower amount of embedded carbon."

Rocket&Tigerli is expected to be completed and ready for residents to move into by 2026.

Source: Schmidt Hammer Lassen

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6 comments
FB36
In past centuries building ships & buildings from timber had nearly destroyed all forests of many countries & not to mention there were many giant city-wide fires!
Maybe we should/must take lesson from history?

Not to mention, do we really want to constantly produce & use very harmful chemicals to fight against termites etc, in all future buildings/towns/cities?

IMHO, trying to bring back timber building construction is a really bad idea!!!
noteugene
My thoughts exactly, bad idea. I'm curious why someone thought this is a good idea?
ljaques
Until it comes crashing down in a decade from lack of or poor maintenance.
Nelson Hyde Chick
We are going to need more and more lumber to build homes and workplaces for the billions more coming while needing more and more trees to sequester CO2 to prevent catastrophic climate change, the numbers do not work.
Aermaco
To those unaware about wood-frame construction, you will learn that it will continue to be utilized more as it accelerates for a while because of its many advantages from the environment to the pocketbook over heavy energy-intense, more expensive concrete and steel.
Thinking wood use today will equate to the past is flat out ignorant as the pre-industrial age when only wood was an option for everything from all forms of transportation to furniture to fuel.
ReservoirPup
If I were to doubt the soundness of the project I'd first search the internet to see how timber construction works nowadays and what the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology of Zürich is. It would have prevented me from posting uniformed but interesting opinions here😜