New regulation for the use of wood in multi‐storey buildings(5‐8 floors) in Finland was executed on the 15th April 2011. The reform triggered the ongoing wave of wooden multi‐storey building projects in the country. Although this last reform represented an important step towards applying wood as a construction material in ever demanding targets, the history of “modern” wood‐based architecture is in fact older, and it was initiated in the early 1990s as an EU cooperation project.
Currently, wood is applied increasingly as a construction material rather widely across the EU countries. However, the development patterns of wooden housing do vary greatly by region in Europe. The transition from the ancient wooden farmhouses towards modern wood architecture with multi‐storey urban buildings evolved particularly smoothly in some specific areas. In Central Europe, wood has maintained its share in the continuously shifting architecture frontier over the years. In contrast, in the forest‐rich Northern countries the path from the past to the current building trends has been characterized by remarkable discontinuities from the viewpoint of wood use. Here, the dominating architecture schools at the times often only scarcely valued wood as a material for multi‐storey buildings ‐ until recently. In future, it seems likely that the wood‐based architecture will increase its market share driven by such megatrends as ecological living and green building as well as substantial advancement in the wood construction technology.
With some 20 years of accumulating and accelerating development, the modern wood‐based housing and construction represents a growing and high‐value market for Dasos wood. In order to highlight the contemporary state, technology, and trends, Dasos invited in June 2015 Ms Nora Anttonen, student at KTH Royal Institute of Technology, School of Architecture and Built Environment in Stockholm, Sweden, to carry out a study on wood architecture with focus in Finland. The work has been supervised by Dr Marko Katila, Senior Advisor at Dasos Capital Oy Ltd.
The study was performed by visiting tens of wood‐based buildings and analyzing implemented technical solutions, interviewing several leading experts in the field, as well as by extensive literature review. The present report aims at summarizing key findings. We thank Nora for her excellent work with the project.
