World’s Tallest Wooden Tower to be Built in Australia

Western Australia is on track to potentially host the world’s tallest wooden building, as authorities in Perth have given approval for a 191.2-meter-tall (627-foot) “hybrid” tower constructed using mass timber.

Perth’s Metro Inner-South Joint Development Assessment Panel (JDAP) recently greenlit the proposal for the skyscraper, currently known as the C6 building, which would be nearly twice as tall as the current record holder.

Developers have stated that 42% of the tower will be constructed from timber, with the columns and core made of reinforced concrete.

If completed, the high-rise will surpass the world’s tallest timber-concrete hybrid building, the 25-story Ascent tower in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, which stands at 86 meters (284 feet), according to the Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat. The proposed structure, located on Charles Street in South Perth, will also exceed the height of the forthcoming hybrid timber Atlassian Headquarters in Sydney, which is set to break the record held by Ascent but is still under construction.

Similar to the Atlassian project, the proposed C6 tower will combine laminated timber beams with a steel exoskeleton to support the structure.

According to Grange Development, the 50-story tower will contain more than 200 apartments and become Western Australia’s first carbon-negative residential building.

Grange Development’s director, James Dibble, explained, “The intent of C6 has always been, at its core, a straightforward proposition. Our aspiration with C6 is to shift the focus towards a more climate-conscious approach.”

The tower will use 7,400 cubic meters (over 260,000 cubic feet) of timber harvested from 600 trees, according to Grange.

Dibble emphasized the importance of using timber, stating, “We can’t grow concrete,” and called the plan “a new open-sourced blueprint that utilizes hybrid construction methodology to offset the carbon within our built environment, which is the single biggest contributor to climate change.”

He added, “This is our opportunity to state that we genuinely care about both the housing crisis before us and the climate crisis we are doing very little about as an industry.”

In addition to using timber, Grange’s plan includes green features such as a rooftop garden, an urban farm, and resident access to 80 new fully-electric Tesla Model 3s.

Philip Oldfield, an associate architecture professor and head of the University of New South Wales’ School of Built Environment, praised the project’s environmental aspects. He said, “Typically, we build tall buildings out of steel and concrete. Cement is responsible for 8% of all CO2 emissions. So by replacing concrete and steel with a biomaterial such as timber, it is going to reduce the environmental impact of the building quite significantly.”

However, Oldfield expressed some skepticism about the claim that the building is carbon-negative, stating, “The only way it would be carbon negative is if the building stored more carbon in the timber than was released (by) the other materials. That may be possible but that’s always going to be temporary.”

Nonetheless, Oldfield is optimistic about the increasing use of timber in construction, stating, “Overall, I think it’s a great move forward. We do need to be building far more of our buildings out of timber.”