By 2050, Europe wants to become the first carbon-neutral continent. This decision is now shaping the overall European development policy.

“If we want to achieve such reduced impacts on the environment, it is necessary to create changes in all fields, including the field of construction, which is one of the major polluters,” Dr. Iztok Šušteršič, research group leader for sustainable construction at InnoRenew CoE, said.

We need to change construction by using more natural materials not only in single family houses but also in multi-story taller timber buildings.

Researchers at InnoRenew CoE have studied this topic for a while now as the importance of taller timber buildings has risen and we are faced with the transition towards more natural and renewable materials in our built environments.

Dr. Šušteršič has also successfully kicked off and will lead a new COST Action — “Holistic design of taller timber buildings” (HELEN) — that will connect international experts who deal exactly with this topic. Further, HELEN will help to develop new methodologies for taller multi-story timber buildings from a collaborative and interdisciplinary perspective, which is crucial to address climate goals.

“COST projects are meant to enhance networking of different experts from a specific area, providing a place for people to meet and to create new networks and discuss new ideas,” Dr. Šušteršič said.

Taller timber building design represent a challenge as different design fields demands can result in collisions. Hence, their design should be interdisciplinary, that is holistic, and different professions should be working on such projects collaboratively — this is HELEN’s main goal. As taller timber building construction becomes more frequent — and it will have to if Europe wants to achieve its ambitious climate goals — knowing how to collaborate and solve any design collisions will be crucial.

You can listen to the whole interview with Dr. Šušteršič about reliable construction of taller timber buildings in the radio show Pogled v znanost (Look at science).