With the worldwide construction sector responsible for one-third of carbon dioxide emissions, as well as forty per cent of the world’s energy use and waste production, a shift to sustainable and renewable construction techniques is crucial. Engineered timber, a sustainable construction material, has evolved to a stage that enables the construction of not only family housing, but also taller buildings commonly built from concrete or steel. COST Action HELEN is working on tackling the challenges related to the design of taller buildings made from timber, such as meeting the new emission targets set by the European Commission in the European Green Deal and increasing the use of timber in the construction of family housing and multi-storey timber buildings.

COST ACTION HELEN – Holistic design of taller timber buildings is funded by the COST Association. COST Actions help connect research initiatives across Europe and beyond and enable researchers and innovators to grow their ideas in any science and technology field by sharing them with their peers. COST HELEN has over 400 participants in 44 countries around the world, of which 34 are COST member countries. The project will last 4 years. It started in October 2021 and will end in October 2025. The project mainly supports travel for researchers. InnoRenew Center of Excellence is the grant holder and administrator of the project.

COST Action HELEN members are distributed across 4 interdisciplinary working groups to achieve their goals in the field of multi-storey timber building design. COST Action HELEN is a unique opportunity that brings together all engineering and non-engineering fields to assess these buildings from an interdisciplinary perspective, and address topics such as robustness, adaptability, repairability, and reusability of taller timber buildings

Grants have allowed almost 50 COST HELEN participants to travel for Short-Term Scientific Missions or conferences around the world.

STSMs allow researchers to visit an institution or laboratory in any country in the world. The aim is to foster collaboration and share new techniques and research infrastructure that may not be available in a participant’s home institution or laboratory.

COST Action HELEN produced a four-part State of the Art report, nearly 400 pages long, that gives an overview of a wide range of topics that contemporary multistorey timber buildings face (or will face soon). Download on the COST HELEN website.

Dissemination of research results is important, and COST HELEN has enabled researchers to publish their research in Open Access publications. In August, a Special issue in Wood Material Science & Engineering will be released. There are 11 accepted papers, 7 are already published online.

The final publication of COST Action HELEN, a Springer Tracts in Civil Engineering book, presents a collection of the challenges in the holistic design of taller timber buildings. This book provides in-depth knowledge and insights into the complexities of the designing, planning, assessing and construction of multi-storey timber buildings. The need for a holistic and interdisciplinary approach in these activities is highlighted, along with a wide range of contemporary challenges in multistorey timber buildings. Ultimately, this book provides timber construction professionals, building investors, and users with valuable guidelines to create safer, more robust, and more comfortable multi-storey timber buildings. The book will be open access and will be released in August 2025.

Visit the COST HELEN website in August to download the book and Special Issue to read!

 Author: Amy Simmons