Wood could hold up the skyscrapers of the future – now that it's stronger and more versatile than ever before
As populations around the world grow and cities burgeon, more and more of us will be adopting a high-rise lifestyle. Perhaps the skyscrapers of the future will be built with our two conventional, energy-guzzling construction materials, cement and steel. Or perhaps they will be made from some lab-derived wonder stuff. Maybe graphene – that much-feted, carbon-based material whose strength, weight for weight, is 100 or more times that of steel. Or some other exotic nano-material, skilfully crafted atom by atom to optimise its strength.
Possibly. Or perhaps they'll be made of wood.
This oldest of construction materials is easy to come by, produces little waste and is renewable if harvested the right way. Where it has fallen down is on strength: it simply doesn't have what ...
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