🌅 Take a Peak at Sweden’s “Wood City”

SOURCE

Atrium Ljungberg

WHAT TO KNOW

• Sweden is building the world’s largest wood city, undertaking an ambitious 15-year project with an estimated €1 billion price tag. Stockholm Wood City will cover 250,000 square meters (about 25 city blocks), hosting 7,000 office spaces and 2,000 residential units, along with its own school, restaurants, and shops. The project, located in an industrial area on the outskirts of Stockholm called Sickla, broke ground in October 2024—several months ahead of schedule—and is expected to be completed sometime in 2027.

WHY IT MATTERS

• Wood City is being built with an engineered mass timber product called cross-laminated timber, or “CLT,” which consists of layers of wood glued together in different directions to increase strength. CLT is manufactured to be incredibly strong, easy to assemble, and fire resistant (CLT is designed to char slowly during a fire rather than combust and burn). Research shows mass timber construction is far more environmentally friendly than conventional steel and concrete, while also acting as a better source of carbon sequestration. Mass timber products are also better insulators than conventional materials, and much lighter overall, making them easier to transport and install.

CONNECT THE DOTS

• Stockholm Wood City carries on the centuries-long Nordic tradition of building with timber, like the historic Urnes Stave Church in Norway. Across the Baltic, Finland broke ground on its own Wood City near its capital of Helsinki back in 2021, transforming an entire city block (about 30,000 square meters) in only a handful of years. Timber construction is also what Swedes want: survey data shows some 70% of residents believe their country should build with more sustainable materials, despite any extra costs.