Build a Wooden house makes the city more eviromentally friendly
Wooden houses are making their way into Barcelona – new multi-storey wooden housing is being built in an attempt to improve sustainability and make the city more environmentally friendly.
Until recently, people had been concerned about constructing houses from wood due to the high fire risk and also concerns about its durability. But wood, used initially for forest houses or ski chalets in the mountains, is now becoming the framework to future urban multi-storey dwellings. In just over a year, several wooden houses have been built in Barcelona, equating to half a dozen public construction projects that are now contributing to the shift towards ecological and sustainable housing.
In the heart of Sants, a wooden construction project will be finished in upcoming weeks which has excited many residents in the area. They have used the one-hundred year old protected façade as the starting point to the construction work. In only a few months, House Habitat, one of the Catalan contractors commissioned to do the build, has built more than a hundred houses of this kind and have commented on the city’s shift towards more dynamic housing.
Modern wooden apartment blocks in an urban setting
Architect Federico Pels, who contracted a wooden housing project between two traditional houses in the old town of El Prat de Llobregat, thinks that these unique houses that are being built in the heart of the urban city mark the first shift towards mid-rise apartment blocks being built for multiple families. “A construction revolution is taking place where wood is becoming more and more prevalent,” he affirms. Many experts agree with his prediction and say that 19th Century constructions were dominated by steel, 20th Century by concrete, and the 21st Century will be wood. Construction work will use natural materials such as wood to be more environmentally friendly. Northern European countries like France and Germany and the United States are much more developed in this sense, and in the last few years they have become much more sustainable using wood from forests responsibly and replacing tress after they have been felled.
José Antonio González, manager of Arquima, a specialized company based in Sant Andreu de la Barca, also maintains that “wood has arrived to stay in local constructions, and will see if becoming more popular year by year.” In 2015, they built six rental dwellings in Poble Sec which became the first multi-family wooden apartments in the city centre. Sustainability is one of the defining principles for Ada Colau, the mayor of Barcelona, so there are many architects who are taking advantage of this shift towards environmentally friendly dwellings and are drawing up designs of entirely wooden buildings even if there is not an explicit demand.
Also Barcelona-home pay attention to sustainability. Have a look to ours event venues, you can find a wooden house right in the centre of Barcelona!
Venue for events in Barcelona Center
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Source: El Periodico
Image credit: idesigncarch, cominhabitat.com
Really good news !