Timber and Architecture (Part III — The Future)

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Abstract

Until the late twentieth century, engineers believed that constructing timber buildings taller than six stories was structurally impossible. Traditional sawn timber offered sufficient strength when forces acted parallel to its grain, yet it remained vulnerable to loads applied perpendicularly. As a result, wood lacked both the tensile capacity of steel and the compressive strength of reinforced concrete—qualities essential for building tall structures and resisting lateral forces such as wind. Today, however, timber architecture has undergone a radical transformation. Buildings exceeding 80 meters in height have been completed or are currently under construction in Europe, North America, and Australia. Entire “timber districts” are emerging in several cities, and architects are now designing large-scale facilities—airports, railway stations, pedestrian bridges, schools, hospitals, and even stadiums—using engineered mass timber. Research increasingly confirms the positive psychological and physiological benefits of biophilic materials within educational and healthcare spaces. Notably, in 2024 the world’s first fully timber stadium opened, signaling a paradigm shift in large-scale structural design. This article examines how engineered timber technologies such as CLT, LVL, and Glulam are reshaping contemporary construction, and it analyzes their potential impact on the global building industry in the coming decades.

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