Over the past few years, timber has become a more widely used material in tall buildings–and from Canada to Japan , architects are pushing the material further and further into the sky. Mjøstårnet, an 18-story project being built in Brumunddal, about 90 minutes north of Oslo, is the latest all-wood high-rise to compete for the record of world’s tallest. In a five-part micro-documentary produced by Moelven, the Scandinavian construction company behind the project, we get a glimpse at the building project. At 265 feet tall, the structure is a fascinating piece of engineering for its anti-fire features alone. Up until 1997, Norway had legally prohibited large timber buildings over three stories after a terrible fire consumed the city of Ålesund in the early 1900s. Yet the construction company claims its building is one of the safest in Norway, thanks to the use of glulam–or glued laminated timber. According to Even Andersen , a fire expert for the engineering consultancy firm Sweco Norge AS that oversaw the project, glulam beams don’t burn. They develop a lawyer of charcoal that stops the fire, keeping their structural integrity intact. “The glulam structures have such huge dimensions that they retain their load-bearing ability […]
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