sustainability

SUSTAINABILITY 15 Timber construction: Wood and its benefits Wood is the most frequently selected building material when it is about low-energy and passive houses. And this is for a good reason as experts know. Wood accomplishes to fulfil the building physical requirements to the greatest extent. Many people decide in favour of wood because of its room climate characteristics: the pleasant surface temperature and the ability to balance temperature and humidity peaks. Wood has a positive effect on people’s well-being and thus on their health – this, too, is an economic factor. Projects such as the reconstruction of the region struck by the earthquake around L’Aquila in Italy impressively prove the capacity of the solid timber system construction design. Of all building materials, wood has the best ratio of weight to load-bearing capacity. It is not only suitable for realising buildings of solid timber construction on particularly difficult parcels of land, for example, on mountain ridges in Zillertal of Tyrol, but also for constructing roof structures on pre-war houses in Vienna’s city centre. Building redevelopment: renovating, modernising and densifying with wood For building redevelopments, solid timber construction in combination with dry construction systems offers big advantages compared to other building materials given the possibility for pre-fabrication and the related short construction periods, the low weight, the positive CO2 balance and the ecological profile. The thermal renovation of buildings has been sponsored for many years by states and municipalities. Structural improvements are considered to be an effective means to reduce the emission of CO2. Well-insulated building parts made of solid timber, which can be installed on site within a short time, represent an interesting alternative to the common methods. In densely populated cities, there are hardly any open areas available for new buildings. Existing buildings offer greatest potential for modernisation and re-densification. Construction designs for the inventory are in demand that can be implemented efficiently, quickly, without a lot of disruption and with precision. Timber construction in various pre-fabrication stages offers solutions for this (see Figure 12). The use of solid, pre-fabricated building elements made of CLT BBS saves long construction periods on site and thereby results in less disruptions of the operating processes or the residential surroundings. After all, besides residential construction, especially also public buildings such as schools, child care centres and administrative buildings are in need of being renovated while they are open for business. Here, the use of building parts that are to the greatest extent pre-fabricated has decisive advantages. Figure 12 – Building redevelopment with wooden elements, proHolz Austria Addition of storeys Vertical densification of the existing building using reserves of the existing load-bearing structure Annex building Spatial expansion in horizontal direction Filling Spatial closure of construction gaps Shell Improvement and/or replacement of the existing building shell (roof/wall) for energetic modernisation

RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy NTQ5ODU5