Cross-laminated timber panels are becoming commonplace in small buildings in continental Europe, but the technology now is reaching new heights in the U.K. A 33.3-meter-high residential building in London will, say its designers, be the world’s tallest to use the innovative material structurally.
Designed to incorporate more than 3,850 cu m of the material, also called CLT, the Dalston Lane building also represents the material’s largest use, adds Waugh Thistleton Architects. The architect pioneered tall CLT structures in the U.K. with completion six years ago of the eight-story Stadthaus apartment building in London. The 16,000-sq-m Dalston Lane building will contain 121 apartments and commercial space formed mainly by more than 28,000 sq m of wall and floor CLT panels supporting most of the vertical and horizontal loads. They consist of generally five layers of solid-sawn lumber with adjacent layers at right angles and bonded with structural adhesive (see related story, p. 36). Rising from a concrete slab one floor above street level, the panels will be covered by brick cladding for weather protection.