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Development project for the commissioning of wooden apartment buildings

The Lahti region is home to numerous wood industry companies and has long-standing traditions in the sawmill and furniture industries. However, no wooden apartment buildings have been built in Lahti since the 1990s. According to experts, wood construction is expensive in the region, and it is difficult to obtain offers for wood construction.

The conditions for developing wood construction exist. A market survey of carbon-neutral construction shows that the use of wooden buildings as carbon sinks is becoming a global phenomenon as part of the mitigation of climate change.

Development of wood construction practices as the goal

The objective of the project is to promote the cooperation of construction companies and wood product suppliers in product development and, through it, boost the development of wood construction practices and reduce prices. The project will produce guidelines for defining contract or tendering materials in wooden apartment building construction projects. The aim is for wood product suppliers to be able to offer their own solutions to the construction companies that implement the apartment buildings.

In wood construction, the client has the plans prepared in advance, and the contractors offer buildings based on these plans. Larger construction companies do not offer wood construction or have the required product expertise.

In cooperation with the LAB University of Applied Sciences, the project will put together a databank on technical and financial guidance on wood construction and make it available to all developers in Finland in the future.

The study will be conducted in the design and tendering phase of an actual project, namely the construction of three wooden apartment buildings on the City of Lahti’s plots located at Svinhufvudinkatu 7–11.

 

Research questions

  1. How can the product development related to the construction of wooden apartment buildings be promoted and by whom?
  2. What would be a suitable emphasis on the price and the quality score tied to the amount of wood/carbon in tendering related to wood construction (or can one exist)?
  3. How are the building’s life cycle carbon footprint and carbon handprint taken into account in the quality score and how much weight should they be given in the selection criteria?