Tokyo To Build 350m Tower Made of Wood (theguardian.com)

A skyscraper set to be built in Tokyo will become the world's tallest to be made of wood. From a report: The Japanese wood products company Sumitomo Forestry Co is proposing to build a 350 metre (1,148ft), 70-floor tower to commemorate its 350th anniversary in 2041. Japan's government has long advertised the advantages of wooden buildings, and in 2010 passed a law requiring it be used for all public buildings of three stories or fewer. Sumitomo Forestry said the new building, known as the W350 Project, was an example of "urban development that is kind for humans," with more high-rise architecture made of wood and covered with greenery "making over cities as forests." The new building will be predominantly wooden, with just 10% steel. Its internal framework of columns, beams and braces -- made of a hybrid of the two materials -- will take account of Japan's high rate of seismic activity. The Tokyo-based architecture firm Nikken Sekkei contributed to the design.

Comments

Re:Fireproof?

[hey!]

Well, consider the 67.3m Grenfell Tower which burned spectacularly last June, killing seventy people. The tower was reinforced concrete, but it was the decorative polyethylene cladding that transmitted the fire at deadly speed, and the interior apartment furnishings that actually killed people.

So it's quite possible for a concrete building to become a fire trap; it's the superficial bits that are the risk. Massive wooden structural members might burn in theory, but like an over-large log they wouldn't catch fire quickly.

So I should think that a large wooden building could in principle be engineered to be for all practical purposes as fire safe as concrete building. The problem is knowing that something is safe in practice. Engineering is as much about the application of experience as it is induction from general principles. So if you build far beyond the limits of experience, you can never be quite certain of the behavior of a system.