Timber buildings go against the grain

Juergen Mayer-Hermann: Pavilion KA300 is a temporary pavilion built by the Mayer-Hermann firm to celebrate the 300-year anniversary of the founding of the city of Karlsruhe, Germany, in 2015. The structure is made out of laminated wood and steel components. All timber elements where prepared at the company’s site and delivered to the construction site ready for assembly. Photo: Uli Deck

Malaysians are familiar with wooden houses, of course. The traditional kampung house used to be made of wood, and then there are – were, anyway – all those beautiful colonial buildings that used wood extensively.

But large structures made of timber are not common in this country. Certainly, we don’t have anything here like the TREET, aka “The Tree”, a 14-storey timber building that is in the final stages of completion in Norway. According to sourceable.net, the structure is made of prefabricated cross-laminated timber and glued laminated timber (glulam) and will house 62 apartments.