Top 10 tallest mass-timber buildings around the world
As part of our Timber Revolution series, we have rounded up the world’s 10 tallest buildings with mass-timber structures, including an engineered-wood shopping-centre extension and a carbon-negative cultural centre.
Compiled using data from the Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat, the roundup also features apartment towers, hotels and a school, demonstrating the potential of mass timber in building tall structures.
While some of the projects have structures made entirely from mass-timber components, such as cross-laminated timber (CLT) and glued laminated timber (glulam), others introduce concrete and steel elements to build taller.
Here are the world’s 10 tallest buildings with mass-timber structures:
Ascent, USA, by Korb + Associates Architects (2022)
Designed by American studio Korb + Associates Architects, this 86.6-metre-tall luxury apartment and retail tower in Wisconsin was certified last year as the world’s tallest timber building.
Named Ascent, the 25-storey building has a concrete base, elevator and stair shafts, with the rest of its structure made from CLT and glulam.
Mjøstårnet, Norway, by Voll Arkitekter (2019)
Certified as the world’s tallest timber building at the time of its completion in 2019, the 85.4-metre-tall Mjøstårnet tower by Norwegian architecture studio Voll Arkitekter has glulam columns and elevator shafts made entirely from CLT.
Located in Brumunddal – an area in Norway with an established wood-processing industry – the timber used to build Mjøstårnet was locally sourced.
HoHo Wien, Austria, by RLP Rüdiger Lainer + Partner (2020)
Austrian architecture studio RLP Rüdiger Lainer + Partner designed the mixed-use HoHo Wien building with three connected tower blocks arranged in an L-shape, each with a concrete core supporting the timber structure.
According to the studio, 75 per cent of the 84-metre-tall building above the ground-floor level is made from wood, including walls, ceilings, floors and columns.
Haut, the Netherlands, Team V Architecture (2022)
Dutch architecture studio Team V Architecture designed the 21-storey Haut residential building with floors and load-bearing inner walls made from CLT, along with a predominantly glazed facade and a core, basement and foundations made of concrete.
The 73-metre-tall structure features a rooftop garden with rainwater storage and 1,500 square metres of solar panels on its roof and facade, helping it achieve a BREEAM Outstanding sustainability rating.
Sara Kulturhus Centre, Sweden, by White Arkitekter (2021)
The Sara Kulturhus Centre in Skellefteå, Sweden, is a 72.8-metre-tall structure made from CLT and glulam that architecture studio White Arkitekter designed to be carbon negative over its lifetime.
It was completed in 2021 and contains a theatre, gallery, library, museum and hotel.
“Embodied carbon emissions from materials, transport and construction as well as carbon emissions from operational energy during 50 years are less than the carbon sequestration in wood within the building,” said White Arkitekter partner Robert Schmitz.
De Karel Doorman, the Netherlands, by Ibelings van Tilburg Architecten (2012)
Dutch architecture studio Ibelings van Tilburg Architecten restored a 1940s shopping centre in Rotterdam and topped it with a hybrid structure of wood and steel containing 114 apartments.
The original shopping centre was ready for demolition before the studio’s intervention, which rests on existing concrete pillars and foundations and extends the building to a height of 70 metres.
“By choosing to ‘top up’ the building we have prevented demolition and the need to remove 15,000 tonnes of concrete,” said the studio.
55 Southbank Boulevard, Australia, by Bates Smart (2020)
Australian architecture studio Bates Smart transformed a concrete building in Melbourne into a 69.7-metre-tall hotel by adding a 10-storey CLT structure on top of it.
Completed in 2020, the studio claims that the project is Australia’s first CLT extension.
“The existing concrete building was designed to support an additional five floors of concrete structure, however by utilising timber, which is 20 per cent the weight of concrete, an additional 10 levels were able to be built providing 15,000 square metres of new floor space and 220 new hotel rooms,” Bates Smart told Dezeen.
Arbo, Switzerland, by Manetsch Meyer Architects (2019)
Swiss architecture studio Manetsch Meyer Architects designed three buildings for the Lucerne University of Applied Sciences and Arts campus in the Swiss municipality of Risch-Rotkreuz.
Two of the three buildings were constructed with composite structures of wood and concrete, including the tallest building named Arbo, which is 60 metres tall and currently the world’s eighth-tallest mass-timber building.
According to the project developer Zug Estates, Arbo was the tallest wooden building in Switzerland when it was completed in 2019.
Eunoia Junior College, Singapore, by CPG Consultants (2019)
Completed in 2019 by building management firm CPG Consultants, the Eunoia Junior College comprises both a 10-storey and 12-storey tower, alongside a five-storey structure topped with a sports field. At its tallest point, it reaches 56 metres.
Described by the firm as Singapore’s first high-rise junior college, the school is constructed with CLT exterior walls clad with aluminium, teamed with floors made up of concrete slabs and glulam beams.
Brock Commons Tallwood House, Canada, by Acton Ostry Architects (2017)
This student residence in Vancouver was formerly the tallest contemporary mass-timber building in the world at the time of its completion in 2017.
Although its height of 53 metres has now been well surpassed, Canadian studio Acton Ostry Architects designed the student housing to demonstrate that engineered wood was a viable option for building high-rise structures.
It is constructed from two concrete cores, along with CLT floor panels that are supported by glulam columns.
Timber Revolution
This article is part of Dezeen’s Timber Revolution series, which explores the potential of mass timber and asks whether going back to wood as our primary construction material can lead the world to a more sustainable future.
Addressing a high demand for social housing in Mexico City, this project is located on a rectangular plot with its shortest side facing the street. The 42 units are placed in three towers, generating interior courtyards for views and natural ventilation for each apartment, connecting them with vertical cores and bridges above the patios. The masonry brick walls play an important role on the project as they are part of the structure and re-interpret the traditional brick wall, blurring the boundary between structure and ornament. With the use of a single unit; red mud artisanal brick, the team was able to create walls that respond to light and shadow.
At the heart of the Flor project was an effort to try and stabilize the lives of people in the city. As permanent supportive housing, the project features large windows, units with a micro kitchen, and each with their own doorbell to reinforce a sense of respite and privacy. Tree-canopied courtyards and indoor and outdoor activity spaces encourage social interaction to add a sense of wellbeing and community.
For La Courneuve, two buildings and 18 duplex units were designed to provide a diversity of housing. A meticulous architectural style contributes to the regeneration of the Cité des 4000. Built in 1956 by the Ville de Paris, this large-scale operation was designed as an estate composed of blocks sited alongside each other. This siting principle generated undefined and unused free spaces, preventing the appropriation of public spaces which are wasted. The regeneration aimed to suppress the effect of uniform and impersonal blocks to give, once again, meaning to the public space with a true landscape and human dimension. The proposal gives a new identity to the neighborhood while integrating this diversity previously missing at all scales of the project.
CasaNova was an exploration that began with a competition publicly announced by the Social Housing Institute based on a Detailed Plan for the residential expansion. This is a tool the municipal administration had to face the need of social housing with a settlement pattern clearly recognizable in the peripheral context. The plan provided the creation of blocks, the “castles”, made of three to four buildings located around an open tree lined court. Following the numerous plan restrictions, the building emphasizes the unity of the plot by working on the concept of block and by identifying a single kind of construction for the front.
For this innovative project in Paris, the team wanted to embrace the neighborhood. Close to avenue de Flandre and just a stone’s throw from the canal de l’Ourcq, rue de Nantes is a fairly traditional Parisian street of Haussmann and inner-suburb buildings. The project gently inserts itself into a narrow parcel bordered by dense, adjoining housing. On the street side, it extends the building streetscape in a simple manner. On the garden side, the staggering from the 1st to the 6th floors creates large, private, south-facing terraces and allows for an unencumbered view of the sky. The “L” shape and the general volumetrics allowed for the creation of a true, collective garden at the ground level, planted with tall trees.
Looking to the future, multigenerational house is a social housing located in Wrocław, Poland. The building design combines three functions for three generations: flats with a care service for the elderly and the people with disabilities, flats for rent dedicated for the young and families, and a nursery school on the ground floor. House generates 117 apartments with different typologies. The building is part of the model housing estate Nowe Żerniki, where local architects collectively tried to respond to the growing housing problems and poor spatial quality. One of the initial assumptions of the project was to create a facility conducive to the integration of all its residents and users, so the multigenerational house was designed as a quarter.
The ‘”Gungjeong Social Housing’ project was carried out for a new residential space experiment for the millennial generation of Korean society. For the younger generation in Korea, residential space is turning into a private space and, at the same time, a community space in loosely solidarity with people of similar tastes. They are seeking the possibility of living and sharing various convenient spaces together because of the expensive housing costs in Seoul. In this project, community lounge cafes will be planned for use by residents on the first and second floors, while the remaining three floors will have a shared house that can accommodate a total of 11 people. Four people reside on each floor, and there is a shared kitchen with a high ceiling on the top floor.
Creating a new urban model, the Iceberg development aimed to create an opportunity for Denmark’s second largest city to develop in a socially sustainable way by renovating its old, out-of-use container terminal. Looking to the future while creating a distinct district, the area is comprised of a multitude of cultural and social activities, a generous amount of workplaces, and a highly mixed and diverse array of housing types. The Iceberg Project was designed to work within the goals of the overall city development. A third of the project’s 200 apartments are set aside as affordable rental housing, aimed at integrating a diverse social profile into the new neighborhood development.
Meanwhile, the Xiaoyunlu 8, MAHA Residential Park project by Ballistic Architecture Machine in Beijing, another A+Award popular winner this year, weaves together disparate sections of the site of various eras and styles into one seamless and soothing green space. Residents can now fully access and enjoy the park’s gardens, historical sites and communal areas.
These projects are a mere snapshot of why at Architizer, we believe that landscapers are the unsung heroes of the design world. It’s why this week we are highlighting jobs in the sector.
