Wooden 'ply-scrapers' eco-friendly replacement for concrete

The recent completion of an eight-storey wooden office block in Austria and a nine-storey residential block in London shows how the "ply-scraper" are fast becoming a reality.

The LCT One building in Dornbirn, Austria, is a 'hybrid' made from both wood and concrete and designed by Austrian architectural firm Cree, the 'Daily Mail' reported.

Assembled from solid panels made from layers of wood and other materials, the high-tech building has a central concrete core housing its lifts and utilities.

From a concrete foundation, vertical posts of glulam, the glue-laminated wood, support hybrid floor panels made from more glulam beams embedded in reinforced concrete.

 

Made by sticking together smaller pieces of wood to create structural elements, glulam can resist compression better than concrete