Sweden to build an urban district made of wood

Five Minute City

A total of 250,000 square metres, roughly 35 football pitches, is the area to be covered by the recently unveiled Stockholm Wood City project, which is backed by Swedish developer Atrium Ljungberg. As the name suggests, the entire new district of the Swedish capital is to be built of wood.

The district will be built in the Sickla area in the south of Stockholm and, in addition to housing and offices, will include a full range of amenities to create a dynamic and sustainable part of the city where all services are within a 5-minute walking distance. Stockholm Wood City will offer a total of 2,000 new apartments and up to 7,000 office spaces.

Not only does this make sustainability the central theme of the entire project, but the project as such sets a new bar for the real estate market in general. Construction of the district is due to start next year, and the first houses designed by Nordic studios White Arkitekter and Hennig Larsen could be ready as early as 2027.

The roots of the timber boom

When it comes to the issue of multi-storey wooden buildings, Sweden has generally had a very strong position in the long term – not only at European level, but also in the world. The country boasts several multi-storey wooden buildings, the most famous being Sara Kulturhus by White Arkitekter in the north of Sweden , reaching a height of 73 metres (in the Czech Republic, wooden buildings can be a maximum of 12 metres high), where practically everything is made of wood, including the elevator shafts.

This Scandinavian country has a long tradition of building with wood, and like other countries, until recently there were strict regulations on height – Until 1994, it was only possible to build a maximum two-storey wooden building in Sweden. But as building technology has moved on, legislation has changed, so that there are now no restrictions on the maximum height of timber buildings in Sweden – but any such project must prove that it meets all fire regulations and other regulations. Instead of a blanket ban, they apply individual assessments.

In this respect, it is also interesting to compare housing construction in the Swedish market – as shown by Lars Stehn’s study from the Technical University of Luleå, from 80. years, it was dominated by small family houses made of wood (about 90%), but after the mentioned change in legislation, there was a significant increase in the construction of residential houses made of woodthat offer a much more affordable housing alternative. The reason for this is that the construction industry at the time was looking for new and more efficient construction methods that could be used to deliver affordable housing, as state housing support was being cut at the time. This led to a great boom in wooden buildings in Sweden.

The Stockholm Wood City project is not just a fad, but another step in Sweden’s bold journey to build with renewable materials.