The Norwegian Wood story
Valle Wood office building: the building structure is 100% clean construction in timber over 7 floors which is Norway’s largest commercial building in wood.
Great interest in Green Visits guided wood tour
Buildings make up for 40% of the world’s energy consumption and generate around 30% of the global greenhouse gas emission. In this context, it is clear that the world needs more climate neutral and plus energy buildings in years to come. As OREEC, Green Visits and The Bioeconomy Region wants to be an entry point for exploring the innovative environmental, climate and renewable energy solutions developed and implemented in the Oslo Region, they made a tour to further enlighten this issue.
Valle Wood office building
Valle Wood is a 100% clean construction in timber with 7 floors and is with this Norway’s largest commercial building in wood. Valle is today used as an office building, with open solutions and a natural atmosphere. An all wood building can regulate itself when it comes to both air humidity and temperature, so the climate inside is normally more comfortable. For the aesthetic, the architects of Valle Wood decided to show the wooden structure, both by making intricate patterns and to just leave it as is.
Wood tour during Oslo Innovation Week 2019
The tour started with breakfast and an introduction by Green Visits and The Bioeconomy Region before quickly moving over to the matter at hand, the building itself. After the introduction, the first to speak was from Lund&Slaatto Arkitekter. Their representative, Espen Pedersen, gave us an interesting and informative presentation about Valle Wood, as well as a small tour of the building. Next up was Bjørn Nordermoen from iTRE with their case Bjørkelangen School, before Erland Lundby from TEWO. He told us about how TEWO is sustainable, innovative and challenges the way we build today. With their timber buildings and special, yet easy way of assembling houses, they aim to lead the way and to inspire the industry to change their ways. The last one to speak was Anders Steinsvik from Nystruktur, the engineers behind the Valle Wood building. The questions from the group varied between both social and technical issues, as well as for how well the building would do in a different climate in another country.
Future solutions
As the first commercial timber building of this size, it was interesting to be there to feel the atmosphere and to learn more about it. Building in wood can spare the environment a lot of climate gas emissions and is a good solution for the future.
The tour was arranged in cooperation with The Bioeconomy Region and OREEC
