Japan will soon be home to something pretty remarkable, a 70-storey skyscraper made almost entirely out of wood.
Designed by Sumitomo Forestry and the architecture firm Nikken Sekkei, the W350 tower will be a flagship of sustainability thanks to its unique construction that use some 185,000 square meters of wood.
If that wasn’t enough, the skyscraper will feature trees, gardens and foliage on every single level and will contain up to 8,000 homes.
W350 isn’t just a statement of what sustainable buildings could look like it’s almost to commemorate the company’s 350th anniversary.
Compared to concrete and steel buildings which can contribute to global emissions, this wooden structure will be able to absorb carbon, rather than emitting it out into the atmosphere.
While high-rise wooden buildings certainly aren’t new, they are complex and expensive. In fact the estimated cost of the W350 is expected to be around £4bn, almost twice the cost of a conventional skyscraper at the same height.
Sumitomo Forestry have scheduled the building to be completed by 2041 with the expectation that advances in construction techniques will have allowed the cost of wooden skyscrapers to drop considerably.
W350 is by no means the first wooden skyscraper, with the current wooden height record going to the Brock Commons Tallwood House student accommodation in Vancouver.
Finished in July 2017, Tallwood House is currently the tallest mass timber building in the world and is home to some 400 students from the University of British Columbia.