It may not be intended as a tourist attraction, but it's bound to become one: a 24-story wooden...yes, wooden...hotel and office tower is under construction in Vienna.
The firm that's building the €65 million project says it chose wood for environmental reasons; the architects say it will save 2800 tonnes of CO2 emissions compared with a conventional building the same size, the equivalent of driving a car 40km a day for 1300 years (or, for that matter 160 km a day for 325 years, but hey...)
It won't be all wood: the building's service core and elevators won't be. Obvious reasons for the elevators; for the core, it's to provide enough stability for the building to stand.
But the big concern is fire safety; with 80% of the building consisting of spruce wood, the Vienna fire service had concerns, and one of the factors making the building more expensive than conventional construction is the extra fire precautions that have been agreed to, including what's intended to be a fail-safe sprinkler system.
When the building opens in 2018, it will be the world's tallest, but not for long if London developers have their way; they're working on plans for a 300-meter building for London.—
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