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Architecture

World's tallest timber building officially crowned by CTBUH

By Adam Williams
March 18, 2019
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Mjøstårnet, by Voll Arkitekter AS, is a timber tower that rises to a height of 85.4 m (280 ft)
Voll Arkitekter AS
Mjøstårnet, by Voll Arkitekter AS, is a timber tower that rises to a height of 85.4 m (280 ft)
Voll Arkitekter AS
Mjøstårnet reaches a total height of  85.4 m (280 ft)
Moelven
Mjøstårnet comprises 18 floors and over 11,300 sq m (121,632 sq ft) of floorspace
Moelven
Mjøstårnet is located in an area of Norway known for its forestry and wood processing industry and is situated on the edge of the country's largest lake
Anti/Jens Edgar Haugen
The building was originally planned to rise to a height of 81 m (265 ft), however in the end, the team decided to increase this by 4.4 m (14.5 ft)
Anti/Jens Edgar Haugen
"The force of the wind at the top is moderated by the lower part of the building, and there must be agreement between the two," says Rune Abrahamsen, director of Moelven Limtre
Anti/Jens Edgar Haugen
View gallery - 6 images

The influential Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat (CTBUH) has officially declared Norway's Mjøstårnet as the new world's tallest timber building. The mixed-use building reaches a total height of 85.4 m (280 ft).

Its height may not be all that impressive compared to the average non-timber skyscraper, but Mjøstårnet represents a genuine milestone in sustainable construction. To put it into perspective, the tallest timber tower in Australia, 25 King, reaches just 45 m (147 ft) and former record holder Brock Commons reaches 53 m (174 ft).

Mjøstårnet was actually planned to rise to a height of 81 m (265 ft), however in the end, the team decided to increase this by 4.4 m (14.5 ft), with property developer Arthur Buchardt of AB Invest stating "as we're going to build the world's tallest timber building in Brumunddal, why not make it as tall as possible?" The change required that the firm alter the shape of the wooden beams at the top of the building from rectangular to rounded.

"The force of the wind at the top is moderated by the lower part of the building, and there must be agreement between the two," says Rune Abrahamsen, director of Moelven Limtre, which was in charge of the build. "By rounding off the edges of the beams, we managed to reach 85.4 m [280 ft]. This principle is known from flag poles, which are round to reduce wind strength."

The building was originally planned to rise to a height of 81 m (265 ft), however in the end, the team decided to increase this by 4.4 m (14.5 ft)
Anti/Jens Edgar Haugen

Mjøstårnet comprises a total of 18 floors and over 11,300 sq m (121,632 sq ft) of floorspace. Its interior includes residential units, a hotel, restaurant, offices, and a swimming pool.

The building is located in Brumunddal, an area of Norway known for its forestry and wood processing industry and is situated on the edge of the country's largest lake. It consists of glulam (glue laminated timber) columns, beams and diagonals, with CLT (cross-laminated timber) used for the elevator shafts, stairs, and floor slabs.

Preliminary construction work on the project began in April, 2017, and it officially opened on March 15.

Sources: Moelvyn, CTBUH

View gallery - 6 images

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ArchitectureBuilding and ConstructionWorld's TallestCTBUHTimber
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Adam Williams
Adam scours the globe from his home in Spain in order to bring the best of innovative architecture and sustainable design to the pages of New Atlas. Most of his spare time is spent dabbling in music, tinkering with old Macintosh computers and trying to keep his even older VW bus on the road.
4 comments
Nobody
I only have one concern. I have seen construction glue decompose to powder after as little as 30 years. How long was this building designed to last?
fb36
I remember reading in a history book (?) that some centuries ago almost all forests in France were gone, because of using trees to make ships!
Now try to imagine, what would happen, if all buildings in the world were made of wood!!!
(Not to mention, extreme weakness against fire, weather, termites etc!)
Douglas Bennett Rogers
This is probably the best way to sequester carbon. Use fast growing trees. Always keep trees in place. Sequester the wood in long lived buildings. Burying the wood would be better except that the wood wouldn't serve any purpose. Irrigating the wood with pumped water would defeat the purpose. I live in a 60 year old glued together wooden house and good luck getting any of that loose!
ei3io
The future world that cares about reducing energy consumption and co2 will be using wood vs steel and concrete where ever possible and the height limits keep rising. The glue lam timber has polyurethane bonds that out of sunlight last indefinitely. Also heavy timber survives fire far better than steel unless it has heavy insulation on it. Wood buildings last for centuries if kept dry from rot or termites. Its also usually local is very aesthetic naturally pleasing as it locks its carbon up into permanent use vs rotting into the forest back into co2.
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