̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge - sustainability

Sowing seeds for timber skyscrapers can rewind the carbon footprint of the concrete industry

ehs33 — Fri, 28 Jun 2019 12:51:58 +0000

Recent innovations in engineered timber have laid the foundations for the world’s first wooden skyscrapers to appear within a decade, a feat that is not only achievable—according to the Centre for Natural Material Innovation—but one they hope will beckon in an era of sustainable wooden cities, helping reverse historic emissions from the construction industry.

̽��ֱ��research team based at the Faculty of Architecture, is interdisciplinary, composed of architects, biochemists, chemists, mathematicians and engineers, who specialise in plant-based material, including cross-laminated timber, arguably the first major structural innovation since the advent of reinforced concrete, 150 years ago.

Principal Investigator Dr Michael Ramage, said “Until cross-laminated timber, there was simply no building material to challenge steel or reinforced concrete. To construct cities and indeed skyscrapers, we just had to accept the good and the bad of existing materials.

“Concrete is about five times heavier than timber, which means more expense for foundations and transport; it’s resource-intensive, and contributes to tremendous carbon dioxide emissions. After water, concrete is the most consumed material by humanity. But now we have an alternative, and it’s plant-based.”

̽��ֱ��team envisage trees supplanting concrete as the predominant building material for cities, with buildings sown like seeds and cities harvested as crops, a way of simultaneously addressing climate change and global housing shortages.

Dr Ramage explained: “In England alone, we need to build 340,000 new homes each year over the next 12 years to accommodate our population. Concrete is unsustainable. Timber, however, is the only building material we can grow, and that actually reduces carbon dioxide. Every tonne of timber expunges 1.8 tonnes of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. Doing the calculations, if all new English homes were constructed from timber, we could capture and offset the carbon footprints of around 850,000 people for 10 years.

“ ̽��ֱ��sustainable forests of Europe take just 7 seconds to grow the volume of timber required for a 3 bedroom apartment, and 4 hours to grow a 300 metre supertall skyscraper. Canada’s sustainable forests alone yield enough timber to house a billion people in perpetuity, with forested trees replenishing faster than their eventual occupants.”

Various teams around the world are hoping to produce the tallest wooden skyscraper, however the team from Cambridge is confident they’ll be the first, having done holistic work on three proposals for timber skyscrapers in London, Chicago, and the Hague, all of which are set to be showcased to the public at the Royal Society’s Summer Science Exhibition 2019, freely open to the public from July 1–7.

̽��ֱ��team’s exhibit—Timber towers of tomorrow—will embody their vision, the stand itself modelled after a typical apartment nested within their proposed Oakwood Timber Tower at the Barbican Tower, where visitors can experience life in a treehouse while talking with the team, viewing architectural models of timber towers, learning about the fire performance properties of engineered timber, and hearing about the genetic, cellular, and macroscale innovations which have led to ply in the sky designs becoming a reality.

Beyond tackling climate change and promoting sustainability, the team are eager to outline the branching benefits society stands to gain by embracing timber architecture: the psychological well-being that comes from being surrounded by wood as compared with concrete, as well as the return to an ancient building material, that’s intimate as it is natural.

A bold response to the world’s greatest challenge
̽��ֱ�� ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge is building on its existing research and launching an ambitious new environment and climate change initiative. Cambridge Zero is not just about developing greener technologies. It will harness the full power of the ̽��ֱ��’s research and policy expertise, developing solutions that work for our lives, our society and our biosphere.

̽��ֱ��Centre for Natural Material Innovation exhibited their proposals for timber skyscrapers at the Royal Society’s Summer Science Exhibition.

Wooden skyscrapers: Sustainable homes of the future?

River Beech Tower Chicago

̽��ֱ��text in this work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. Images, including our videos, are Copyright © ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge and licensors/contributors as identified. All rights reserved. We make our image and video content available in a number of ways – as here, on our main website under its Terms and conditions, and on a range of channels including social media that permit your use and sharing of our content under their respective Terms.

Yes

Emissions-free flying takes off at Cambridge Climate Challenge

plc32 — Thu, 03 Apr 2025 09:11:42 +0000

A biology PhD candidate and an early career aerospace engineer researcher won the 2025 Cambridge Zero Climate Challenge for turning waste into sustainable jet fuel

̽��ֱ��coral whisperer

lkm37 — Tue, 25 Feb 2025 09:41:11 +0000

Duygu Sevilgen has built a coral lab in the basement of an old Zoology building. Here, 10 experimental tanks host multicoloured miniature forests, with each tank representing a different marine environment. Duygu uses extremely small sensors to record the fine details of coral skeletons and listen to their dialogue with algae. In doing so, she determines how much change corals can bear, and improves our chances of saving them in the wild.

CISL appoints Lindsay Hooper permanent CEO

plc32 — Mon, 02 Dec 2024 13:21:20 +0000

Lindsay’s appointment comes at a critical moment for the sustainability movement and for CISL.

Following another year of record temperatures, extreme weather events and sustained biodiversity loss, the evidence is clear that the world is not on track. Confidence within the sustainability movement has faltered and big questions are being asked about what is needed to deliver the change we need. Under Lindsay’s leadership as interim CEO the Institute has engaged with these important questions. Read more about Lindsay Hooper's appointment here

̽��ֱ�� ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge Institute for Sustainability Leadership announces it has appointed Lindsay Hooper its permanent CEO and Head of Department.

̽��ֱ��need for CISL’s work has never been greater and I’m delighted to be working with an exceptional team

CISL CEO Lindsay Hooper

CISL

Photo of Lindsay Hooper

̽��ֱ��text in this work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. Images, including our videos, are Copyright © ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge and licensors/contributors as identified. All rights reserved. We make our image and video content available in a number of ways – on our main website under its Terms and conditions, and on a range of channels including social media that permit your use and sharing of our content under their respective Terms.

Yes

A radical economic transformation is the only way to save nature and ourselves

plc32 — Mon, 04 Nov 2024 17:16:30 +0000

Cambridge Institute for Sustainability Leadership's Chief Innovation Officer, James Cole, looks back at what happened at COP16, and asks what comes next in this article.

After two weeks of negotiations last week in Cali, Colombia, the COP16 biodiversity summit was suspended with no overall agreement on a path forward on “resource mobilisation."

Yes

Wild horses

lkm37 — Wed, 09 Oct 2024 10:14:29 +0000

Meet the team reintroducing large herbivores to the coldest place in Spain.

What does it take to make a better battery?

lw355 — Tue, 01 Oct 2024 08:20:28 +0000

Cambridge researchers are working to solve one of technology’s biggest puzzles: how to build next-generation batteries that could power a green revolution.

Building a more sustainable world

skbf2 — Thu, 19 Sep 2024 10:21:27 +0000

This longstanding partnership between Cambridge, Arup and the Ove Arup Foundation has made our world safer and more sustainable and changed the way professionals are taught.